New Year Resolutions in ActionWeek 1: Get a System that Works Want an easier way of keeping up with our updates? Either add our RSS feed to your favourites or subscribe to our monthly newsletter “The Goal Kicker”.
Week 1: Get a System that WorksWell, now that the festivities and celebrations of Christmas and New Year are over, it’s time to knuckle down and take your resolutions seriously.But before we get into it, here are some sobering facts. In 2010, the average person will: 1. Break their resolutions by the end of January. 2. Only make the same amount of money as the average of their last 5 year's total income. 3. Gain 2 pounds of body fat. 4. Struggle with the same habits, patterns, and behaviors that they always have. 5. Get to the end of the year and have made very little progress in their life. The fact is, its people who are outside of the "norm" that really do anything significant with their lives. And it has nothing to do with luck of fate or genetics. The fact is, success "can" be reverse engineered and reproduced. You don't have to accept what everyone else is getting or doing - but you must make a few new choices. Suppose you decided today - right now - that you're finally making a REAL commitment to turn your dreams into actions... your goals into achievements... AND your Resolutions into reality. It can happen... but you've got to take the first step. Now, in the last few newsletters of 2009, I asked you to think about what you really want from your life and take that first step in setting and achieving goals. Over the next few weeks I’m going to give you some advice on how you can improve your chances of achieving success. And my first bit of advice is … find a goal setting system that works for you. The truth of the matter is that goal setting is just a process, a simple process at that. But there are some traps and pitfalls you want to avoid, and some tips and tools that can make the process a whole lot easier. That’s what a goal setting system does – makes your goals setting journey easier, which means you enjoy the journey more and are more likely to succeed. Anyway, here are some good programs that you can try: Life Planning Program The Life Planning Program is a workbook style program that you can work through at your own pace, and is supported by practical tools, templates and assessments – and it’s all FREE! The program is based on helping you to identify what you really want out of life and how you can achieve it by understanding how your own unique personality, strengths and weaknesses affect your ability to set and achieve goals. The program then uses the industry accepted method of setting SMART goals, and shows you how to develop action plans to achieve these goals. The program is very in depth for something that’s free, but because it’s free, it’s not very pretty in parts! Goal Pro GoalPro is a goal setting software, probably the most feature-rich application in the self-help industry. The latest version has great interface, lots of new features, and new video tutorials that show you how to work with this program. That's great, because the program is so full with features and it's not so simple to take advantage of all of them. You can literally do hundreds of stuff with this program, like:
So if you're looking for something that would help you to get yourself organized and focused on your goals, you can download 15-day trial to see if it works for you. Got Resolutions Challenge The Got Resolutions Challenge is a personal leadership program that provides a step-by-step system for setting and achieving your New Year's Resolutions. When I saw this exciting program, I was really impressed by its content, delivery, and overall impact of both its message and first-class execution. This exciting program will be there to support and guide you so YOU can resolve to change your life for the better, and I mean MUCH BETTER! You have an awesome opportunity to begin the year fast, focused, and full of hope. All you have to do is say YES, I'm ready to make this the best year of my life! It's easy to get started right away. Visit Got Resolutions today and make your resolutions a reality, once and for all!
100 Day Challenge Many of you took up the 100 Day Challenge issued by the GoalsGuy in September 2009. This was an excellent program, designed to finish the year with a bang – and I hope those that participated got some real value out of the program. Anyway, the GoalsGuy is issuing the Challenge again starting on 11 January. So why not start the near at full speed and take up the 100 Day Challenge.
And don’t forget, you can try one or more of the following FREE resources to help you on your journey: So until next week, resolve to make 2010 the best year of your life! Best regards
Sam Sander
D-Day: Happy New Year!!I hope you are all in good spirits for the next decade of the millennium, and are excited about the prospects and opportunities that the future brings. Now, over the last 4 weeks, if you’ve been reading our newsletters, you’ve looked closely at what you want to achieve in your life and what in particular you want to achieve this year. So what we are going to do over the next few weeks, is turn these into real goals that you can take action on. Of course, today probably isn’t the best day to do this – if you’re like me you’re probably a little hung over and gorged from the festivities of the Christmas/ New Year holiday! And it’s a holiday – just enjoy yourself! But what you can do today and before you receive our next newsletter (in about 3 days), is read over the description of your perfect life you hopefully wrote down at the ‘3 weeks to go’ mark. [If you’ve miss-placed your newsletters from the last month, or have no idea what I’m talking about, you can find them all here, including the links to all the FREE resources] Read it, visualise it, put yourself mentally in the picture of it – does it still excite you, motivate you, make you feel happy? If YES, then you’re well placed to start serious goal setting with our next newsletter. If you’re left feeling a little luke warm, hopefully it’s just the excess volumes of champers you drank last night, but it’s probably worth reflecting on the exercises of the previous newsletters just to make sure you really have an understanding of where you want your life to go. Because if you don’t, you won’t be setting the right goals for yourself. Anyway, enjoy your holiday, spend some time with the people you love and be armed with your 3 top goals for the next edition of the Goal Kicker, which you should expect in a few days. Best regards
Sam Sander
1 Week to GoHow did you go with your affirmations?I know it seems to be taking a while to get to the actual goal setting bit, but believe me, if you don’t have the right mindset leading into goal setting, then you will find it a lot harder than if you go into it with the right attitude. And that’s what we’ve been doing over the last few week (hopefully) – working on the ‘why’ and the positive build-up to the goal setting process. [If you’ve missed any of the newsletters in this series, you can find them here]. And now that’ we’ve worked through the why’s and the attitudes of effective goal setting, it’s time to start thinking about the exact goals that you’re going to tackle in 2010. So reflect on the outcomes of the last few weeks and ask yourself, what are the top 3 things you would like to achieve in 2010. Think of things that:
It’s important to remember that, no matter how enthusiastic about goal setting you are now, you will need to be able to keep up a level of enthusiasm to continue with your goal setting efforts. So it’s important not to bite off more than you can choose. That’s why it’s a good idea to start off with only a few good goals – or even one goal – as long as it is a goal that fits the above criteria. Remember you can always set more goals later! The other key thing to remember with goal setting is to not expect too much too soon. Yes, you can achieve BIG goals, but not overnight. And even with strong Affirmations and a powerful dream, you still need to be able to walk before you can run. So identify the first stage in your journey. For example, if your dream life involves you being a lead engineer on a world leading project, then you need to get your engineering qualifications first. So for your 3 goals for 2010, think about:
And now that you know what your next step is, why not take that step – TODAY! What’s stopping you? The exciting thing is that you now have 3 goals that you know you really want to achieve, because you have a personal and motivating reason to achieve them, you have the tools to give you the positive attitude to achieve these goals, and now you know what the first steps are that you need to take to achieve these goals. And that is what goals setting, and New Year Resolutions, is all about. Now early in the new year, we’ll go through how to take the above steps and turn them into an action plan for achieving your goals. But for now, you know what you want to achieve, and you what you need to do next to allow you to achieve them. And don’t forget, you can try one or more of the following FREE resources to help you on your journey: So until next week (more like next year!), enjoy the festivities of the Christmas and New Year holidays! Best regards
Sam Sander 2 Weeks to GoWell, I hope you have had a productive week since our last newsletter! Hopefully you’re all excited about the future and the opportunities it brings.Just recapping on last week’s newsletter on how to work out what you really want out of life [you can find a copy of the newsletter hereif you’ve forgotten], it’s important that you set your goals based on what YOU really want, otherwise you’ll find them difficult if not impossible to achieve. A quick test is the “Last person on earth” test. Think about your goals and ask the question, “If I were the last person on earth, would I really be interested in pursuing this goal?”. You obviously need to put this in the context of what your goals are as some goals (such as family goals) will involve other people on earth, but the gist of the question is to consider what you would really do if there was no audience to see you achieve your goal. If you answer “yes” to this question, then your goals are probably true to your heart. If you answer “no”, then perhaps they are more aligned with keeping up with the Jones. But whatever the answer, it’s just another way at getting you to look at your goals and what you really want to achieve. Anyway, I’m assuming you’ve got a pretty good idea of what you want to achieve, and if you’re still not sure, don’t worry too much. Things will become clearer as you work through the process. So the question now, is how can you achieve your dreams and goals? A good way to think about your goals is to think of them as a target destination of a journey. To get to your target destination, or goal, you therefore need a map to get there, a vehicle and fuel. And if it’s a long journey, you’ll probably have some passengers, pit-stops and detours along the way. If you think about goals in these terms, then the road map is your goal action plan, the vehicle is you and the fuel is energy, motivation and attitude. So lets talk about these. The Road Map to Success Just as a road map give you directions to your destination, an action plan sets out the step-by-step directions and instructions on how to achieve your goal. And like a road trip, you can include stop-overs or mini-milestones in your plan too. Vehicle Maintenance If you are the vehicle on the road to achieving your goals, then keeping that vehicle in tip top shape is critical in achieving your goals. And unlike a real car, you can’t trade yourself in on a new one – you have only one body and one life – so take care of it, and make the most of it. Fuel the fire If fuelling yourself to achieve your goals was as easy as putting fuel in the car, everyone would be goal setting success stories. But in reality, keeping fuel on the fire is probably the hardest part of any goal setting journey. In order to achieve your goals, you need to fuel your on-going desire to achieve them. And this desire will give you the motivation, the drive and the enthusiasm to achieve your goals. But how do you actually do this? How can you fuel and on-going desire to achieve those goals? Well, it’s not always easy, particularly when life gets in your way and you get those inevitable detours, road-works and difficult passengers! But here are some techniques that can really help:
And here is a FREE E-book from Dream Manifesto on How to Create the Life You Always Wanted, which discusses how to manifest your dreams and desires using positive affirmation techniques. Get into the right mindset NOW, so by the time New Year comes around, you will already be thinking “Yes, I can achieve this”, whereas most New Year goal setters will still be thinking “What am I going to try and achieve this year”. So try Affirmations, try visualizations or just read over the detailed description of your perfect life – whatever works for you and provides the high-octane fuel for your fire. And don’t forget, you can try one or more of the following FREE resources to help you on your journey: So until next week, happy thoughts, dreams and lot’s of positive affirmations! Best regards
Sam Sander 3 Weeks to GoHow did you go?Last week I asked you to think about yourself on your death bed, and how do you want your life to be remembered? How do you want YOU to be remembered? What achievements do you want to have achieved? And more importantly, think about what makes you happy. When are you at your happiest and what are you doing? What is your passion? These are all critically important questions because, coming up to the New Year Resolution show-down of 1 January, you need to realise that fewer than 10% of people who set New Year Resolutions actually achieve them. Why? Because they don’t know what they really want, that’s why. So please, don’t fall into the same trap. But New Year Resolutions can be successful, as long as you make them the right way. And the right way is to make sure your Resolutions are in sync with what you really want – perhaps subconsciously – from your life. And you need to consider all parts of your life. Goals are traditionally focussed on health and weight, finances and career. But you also have dreams and aspirations about family life, social life and maybe even spiritual matters – so you should also have goals in these areas, to keep a balanced approach. As well as the ‘death-bed’ approach, a good way to work out what you really want is to close your eyes (don’t do this when you’re driving) visualise yourself in your perfect life. You probably want to visualise a few different scenarios – you at work, you at home with the family, you in a social setting, and so on. For each scenario you visualise, write down a detailed description of what you see (or record via Dictaphone) – What are you doing? How are you behaving? How do you feel? What are you wearing and what do you look like? What are the people around you doing and who are they? What do they think of you? And so on… Once you’ve written this all down, read it back to yourself and imagine if this was REALLY your life – it should make you feel happy and maybe even a little excited about the prospect of living your dream. So if this is a visualisation of your perfect life, then your goals need to reflect how to achieve it. Now, what does your life look like now, and how does this compare with your dream life? Looking at the gap between where you are now and where you want to be can help you identify the goals you really should be setting for yourself. It’s also important to reflect on your life as it stands and ask yourself, when are you at your happiest? What do you really love about your life? And, what makes you the saddest about your life? The answers to these questions may also be able to help… but a word of warning: Most goals that are set in response to something negative, are difficult if not impossible to achieve as it’s very hard to develop enthusiasm and momentum from a negative emotion. It is always easier to move toward something positive, rather than away from something negative. For example, how can you get excited about losing weight, because it requires deprivation of food that probably gives you great pleasure currently, and the discomfort of exercise. It's a negative response to a negative emotion about your self image and health. Studies show that people who succeed at losing weight and maintaining weight loss have usually been motivated by a dream much bigger and more positive than just losing weight. They see themselves living a healthy lifestyle, or perhaps they see a positive physical achievement such as climbing a Mountain. And they start to act and think like people who are in good health. In this case, there is more of a deep-seated change in the person's thinking and actions than you see with most resolutions. And it wouldn't be possible to make and maintain such a radical change unless the person is motivated by a big dream that is positive in nature. Similarly, how can you get motivated about a goal that someone else tells you to do? In reality, you can only be truly inspired by the things that YOU are passionate about. And it is in these areas of personal passion that you’ll have the greatest success in setting and achieving your goals. So, there’s some food for thought. Make a commitment this week to determine what you really want from life – discuss it with your partner or someone else important in your life, get excited about what the future can bring and maybe even get a little scared by the big dreams your dreaming. Next week we’ll start to look at HOW you can change your mindset, and get you heading in the right direction towards your dream life. If you need some help getting all your thoughts down, Mind Mapping is an excellent tool to untangle all your thoughts and get them on paper. Here is a FREE E-Course on how to Mind Map – it takes longer than a week, but even the first few lessons will give you enough of an idea on how to apply it to this exercise. And don’t forget, you can try one or more of the following FREE resources to help you on your journey:
So until next week, happy thoughts and dreams. Let’s see if we can help you achieve them. Best regards
Sam Sander 4 Weeks to GoWith only 4 weeks to go until the end of the year and the start of a brand new one, it’s easy to wind down and not worry too much about your life goals until next year. And millions of people round the world take this approach, and then use New Year’s Day as a fresh start to a new year and as the trigger to evaluate their lives and where it’s all heading. The problem is, most goals set on New Year’s Day are reactionary – “Gee, I wish I didn’t eat so much at Christmas. I’m really going to lose weight this year.” Or “We spent way too much on Christmas presents. This year we’re really going to get our finances in order”. Do any of these sound familiar? Of course, reactionary or ‘guilt’ based goals really don’t work because the feeling of guilt and the length of the ‘reaction’ actually don’t last very long so your desire to achieve these goals disappears as well – usually by the end of January. But there is something refreshing about starting a year a-new, and New Years Resolutions are still the most popular way to do it. So I thought we’d get in early and start you all thinking about your goals NOW so you can make your New Year Resolutions count. Why start now? Well, thinking about your life direction and setting these important goals takes time and it isn’t easy to do it all on one day, particularly if you’re a little hung over from the night before! So for the next 4 weeks, we’ll be arming you with the resources and tools to get your mind around your goals and what you really want to achieve from you life, so that on New Year’s Day, you can hit the ground running with real goals that are based on your understanding of what you really want to achieve - goals that are meaningful to you and goals that you have a genuine desire and passion to want to achieve. Of course, it’s important to realise that New Year resolutions aren’t the only chance you’ve got to set yourself goals. Birthdays, seasons, the start of the month and even every Monday are all great times to set goals. In fact, you can actually set goals anytime you like! Any epiphany will do! Now to get you started, I recommend that you try one of the following FREE resources on how to set and achieve goals.
These E-courses and the workbook are all based on the same concept of understanding yourself first, before you can understand what goals you really want to achieve. We’ve had some extremely positive feedback from the workbook (the e-courses are based on the workbook) so please give it a go. And it’s FREE. Here’s another FREE e-book on goal setting from Arina Nikitina. We’ll be issuing the next Goal Kicker edition in this NYR Count Down Series next week, so before then I just ask you to think about what you really want to achieve from your life. Think about when you’re on your death bed, how do you want your life to be remembered? How do you want YOU to be remembered? What achievements do you want to have achieved? And more importantly, think about what makes you happy. When are you at your happiest and what are you doing? What is your passion? All of these are fundamental in enabling you to set the goals that are going to be best for you, and these goals are the ones you should be setting yourself now and for the New Year. So until next week, happy thoughts and dreams. Let see if we can help you achieve them. Best regards
Sam Sander Well, that’s all for this month! But don’t worry, check back to the website next month for more goal setting highlights. Or subscribe to our free blog or free monthly newsletter "The Goal Kicker" - that way you'll never miss out on the month's highlights. Catch you next month!
|
