Many people will be starting the New Year with some resolutions in mind. Having goals is fundamentally important to well being. Goals are attractors, like magnets they pull us forwards into our future, making it compelling and they stop us from getting stuck. They give our lives a sense of direction and movement. Achieving them has a positive impact on our self esteem.
Here are a few simple tips to help you on your way:
State your goal in positive terms. Focus on what you want to achieve as opposed to what you want to stop doing, for example ‘I want to eat less chocolate’ can be better rephrased as ‘I want to eat more fruit’. This is because in order to process the negative your mind first has to make a picture of what is to be negated– so it sees a nice big bar of chocolate and then tells itself not to eat it,which actually reinforces the very thing you want to keep away from! Having a goal of eating more fruit gives your brain a very clear and direct message of what you want to happen.
Commit your goals to writing. Anything which has significance in life is stated in writing. Birth, marriage, death, laws, religious scriptures all have written form. Remember to include the date you set your goal, it will be meaningful when you look back after achieving it. A journal, diary, laptop or postcards are all great for doing this. If you’re a more visually oriented person you might like to create a collage of different pictures or photos which represent your goal.
Specify for success. Anything can be accomplished if it’s broken down into small enough steps. We human beings have sent men to the moon! Goals are essentially journeys, they take us from where we are to where we want to be and like any journey they are made up of individual steps. Identifying the daily, weekly and monthly steps which need to be taken, will help you to keep on track.
These can be of an external nature such as doing regular exercise, sticking to a healthy eating plan, learning a new skill or getting the support of a friend. Equally important are the internal personal qualities you can draw on like determination, being organised, relaxed, creative or patient. Beliefs also exert a huge amount of influence on goals, an empowering belief to hold could be: ‘I deserve to have my goal and am capable of achieving it.’
Have milestones and celebrate them. Milestones are critical for keeping up the necessary motivation to reach a goal. Celebrating them serves to acknowledge all the effort you’ve put in and how far you’ve come, as well as adding in some all important feel good factor.
Keep your eye on the goal when doing the boring stuff. Having the bigger picture in mind while doing the smaller everyday kinds of tasks towards your goal will help you to stay focused and motivated.
Don’t be scared of the blips. Thankfully we’re not robots, but wonderful human beings, so there will be days when you are amazingly enthusiastic and feel nothing in the world could stop you and others when you feel weary and tired towards your goal. When you have a blip be gentle and loving to yourself and remember if you’ve taken three steps forward and moved back two, you’ve still gained one step and are still closer to your goal than before. That’s something to be proud of.
Darshan Kaur is based in southeast England and works as an NLP Therapist, providing help for a range of different issues including weight management, stress and relationships.