Start as you mean to go on? 7 Steps to Getting Started on Your Goals

You've heard the old saying, "Start as you mean to go on," right? Here we are closing in on the end of January 2012. Did you start as you intend to go on? Was January your best month ever? Are you feeling confident that 2012 will be your best year ever?

Stop and think about it. Did you start 2012 as you mean to go on for the rest of this year? My sincere hope is that the answer is a resounding YES! But what if you're shaking your head and wishing you could rewind back to January 1st and start this year again? Well, you can't turn back time, but you can make a fresh start today. The year is still young. There's time to plan to make 2012 your most fantastic year yet. But you need to get started. Don't waste any more time!

The truth is simple: You are always working on goals. It's your choice whether they are your goals or someone else's. Have you been working on YOUR goals for the last 30 days? If not, get started!

7 Steps to Getting Started on Your Goals:

1. Carve out 5-10 minutes each day this week to reflect on and write down what you want to accomplish this year.
2. Work toward creating a list of the goals that matter most to you.
3. Prioritize these goals in order of importance to you. (Don't fall into the trap of trying to guess what other people think your priorities should be.)
4. Create an achievement plan for each of your goals. Identify the benefits of achieving the goal, obstacles you'll face and how you'll overcome them, and detailed action steps with timelines.
5. Decide how you will track your progress and who you will call upon to hold you accountable.
6. Incorporate your action steps into your planning system. Whether you use a paper calendar/planner or an electronic calendar (or both), determine the best way to keep your goals AND action steps in front of you on a daily basis.
7. Consider working with a coach to keep you on track (and help you with this process, if it seems overwhelming).

In order to move forward in a positive direction, you need clearly defined goals. Seeking and finding clarity is not easy, but it serves us well.

As always, if we can support you in your goal-setting efforts, don't hesitate to reach out to us. Have a productive week!

Screw Your Resolutions

What? Is that really the title of this blog post. Yes, you read it right.

I got an email with this subject yesterday. It floored me. It was from a local pub and the first paragraph read, "If you're like most of us, 24 days ago you swore off booze, good food, and fun times for awhile. Well, we'd like to put you back on the right track so we've come up with a few outs..."

So this pub is giving me and you an out on our resolutions. Awesome.

The truth is that by January 25th, most people have screwed their own resolutions without help from a pub. They made the choice themselves. They were never fully committed to the resolutions to begin with. Is that true for you?

Regardless of where you stand with those "resolutions," you can make a choice today. I say screw your resolutions. Set goals instead. Start today.

New Year, New Goals?

I'm facilitating a workshop this week called, "New Year, New Goals." As I've been working on my preparation for this workshop, I've been reflecting on the fact that many of my 2012 goals are not new.

One of the interesting things about goal-setting is how many of our goals are lifetime goals. Some of my lifetime goals include honoring my marriage vow of "til death do us part," being the best mother I can be to my beautiful children, and living a healthy, active lifestyle.

Ultimately, there are two different types of goals:

1) Becoming goals

2) Having goals

Our lifetime goals tend to fall into the becoming category. These goals focus on becoming who we are called to be and fully living out our passion. Becoming goals can be extremely challenging, if not impossible, when we don't know our life's purpose. I spent many years of my life spinning my wheels because I didn't fully understand my purpose in life. Now that I do, I am committed to making daily progress toward my becoming goals, always striving to remain focused on what matters most in my life.

Our having goals are all about a one-time achievement or getting something we want. These goals are important as well. Some of us are more motivated by having goals, while others tend to focus their time and energy on becoming goals. Which strategy is best? That's not for me to determine. It depends on you and where you are on your leadership journey. Most people have a combination of both types of goals.

So is your new year filled with new goals? Will you be more focused on becoming or having?

January 10th Check-In

We are on day 10 of 2012. How's it going so far? Are you fired up and making HUGE progress toward your goals for the year? Are you filled with positive energy and enthusiasm about the year to come?

OR...

Have you not even changed your calendar over to the new year yet? Are you in complete denial that you're 10 days in to your fresh start...and not feeling so fresh? Are you still trying to figure out what your 2012 goals are...or trying to "find time" to write them down and figure out how you're going to achieve them this year?

Regardless of where you are at this very moment, the year is still young. It is a year filled with possibilities. All of your goals CAN be within your reach this year. The choice is yours. What are you waiting for?

Not so long ago you were saying "Happy New Year" to your family and friends. What are you going to do to deliver on that promise and make 2012 your happiest, healthiest, most fantastic year ever?

Change This ONE Thing and Everything Will Be Different

Today's guest blogger is Jordana Jaffe of Quarter Life Clarity.

Change this ONE thing and everything will be different!

I realized something over the past year that I want to share with you:

Your happiness is directly related to the degree that you keep the promises you make to yourself.

We become unhappy, frustrated, disappointed with ourselves when we break these promises.

We tell ourselves we're going to go to the gym.

We don't go.

We tell ourselves we're going to get up early.

We sleep in.

We tell ourselves we're going to complete the tasks on our to-do list.

We leave it untouched.

When we start breaking the promises we make to ourselves, we lose the ability to trust ourselves, and when we lose the ability to trust ourselves, our self-esteem plummets. Because how can we improve anything in our lives if we can't trust our own word?

I have struggled with this for far too long and far too often, so I know the effects it can have on your life. But if feeling disappointed, frustrated, and annoyed were enough to help us change our behavior, life would become a lot easier. What often happens instead is that we simply get used to feeling this way and continue our behavior accordingly.

The way to change your behavior is to examine WHY you're breaking your word. And from my own experiences, I've come up with a few reasons:

1. You don't want it badly enough. It's so easy to SAY we're going to do something. And yet, while it may take only a few seconds for the words to come out of your mouth, the corresponding actions that are meant to follow can be significantly more effortful. Your life right now, whether you like how it is or not, reflects what works for you most. If you say you're going to go to the gym in the morning, but you sleep late, sleeping is more of a priority for you than working out.

2. You don't plan ahead. Sometimes we tell ourselves we're going to do something and we may really want to do it, but we don't plan ahead. For example, we want to eat healthier but we don't go food shopping over the weekend and instead end up ordering in unhealthy food. Or we say that we want to go to the gym, but we only set one alarm (as opposed to a few), or we go to bed really late the night before, instead of making it a PRIORITY to get into bed earlier.

3. You're avoiding feeling uncomfortable. No one likes feeling uncomfortable. If we did, we would be able to change our lives for the better at a far faster pace than we do now. A lot of the time, we haven't done something yet - as much as we may say we WANT to - because we know that doing that one thing won't feel good AT FIRST. Essentially we're focusing more on the short-term rather than the long term. You may prefer to sleep in and not go to the gym because you don't want your body to hurt while you lift heavy weights or you don't want to experience feeling out of breath in spin class. And I get that completely. It's a matter of re-shifting your focus to the long-term effects of this behavior to realize that the discomfort you feel will only be temporary.

4. You're not being real with yourself. Sometimes we set ourselves up for disappointment by telling ourselves that we're going to do something that simply isn't realistic. There are only 24 hours in the day, and if we tell ourselves that we're going to cram in 30 hours of stuff, it just won't happen. Give yourself a challenge, but remember to be reasonable at the same time.

Start keeping your word with yourself and your life will change dramatically. This week, make a note of the promises you're making to yourself and see which ones you're keeping. For the ones that you're not, make a note of the way breaking the promise makes you feel and think about the reasons as to why you broke it in the first place.

Remember, you can do this!

Jordana Jaffe created Quarter Life Clarity to empower and help women in their 20's and 30's clarify their goals, identify their passions, and live their best and most authentic lives. Having graduated from college with an English degree and absolutely no direction beyond that, to being the founder of two successful businesses featured on NBC, in Women's Health, People StyleWatch and the New York Daily News, within only a few years, Jordana realized that success is YOURS for the taking, regardless of age or background. She believes in educating young women on the possibility of playing BIG and living full out, and has since committed herself to helping young women create the quarter lives of their dreams, whether that's figuring out your ideal career, or finding the perfect partner.

Jordana speaks on college panels, at university functions, sorority meetings, and leads her own workshops as well. To find out more or to book Jordana to come to your school or event, please email her.

Capitalize on What Comes

“Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.” When I read this quote from Zig Ziglar, I started thinking to myself how often do I expect the best, prepare for the worst, and capitalize on what comes? Most of the time all that I do is simply hope for the best. If the outcome that I want never comes, I think of the situation as a loss.

What if I chose to capitalize on whatever the outcome is, whether it be the best or the worst? Time and time again we hear: let’s turn a negative into a positive, or let’s make light of a bad situation. This quote to me simply means let’s set a goal, let’s take action, and let’s accomplish the goal!

In SOS Leadership’s Seeds of Success program we define commitment as, “It is DONE!” You are not truly committed to anything unless you finish it. If you are truly committed to something, you are going to finish/fulfill that commitment regardless of the bumps you may encounter along the way.

The main reason we do not accomplish our goals is because when things get difficult, it is easier to give up on that goal than to continue on the road towards accomplishing it. Although, if a goal is really that easy to give up on, was it ever really worth it?

What if before starting something we did expect the best outcome, we did prepare for the worst outcome, and we did capitalize on whatever comes? If we have the best outcome, let’s take that positive energy and continue accomplishing our other goals. If we have the worst outcome, let’s capitalize on it and turn something negative into a positive and continue working towards reaching our goals.

Remember despite what the outcome is “don’t give up, don’t ever give up!” Failure is simply giving up. In 2012, I encourage you to fulfill your commitments, and capitalize on what comes!