Happy New Year!
We’re well into the first full week of 2020.
Now that we are into a new decade, what’s next?
In my recent end of the decade podcast series, I spoke about reflecting on where we are right now in several dimensions of our lives.
I suggested we rate ourselves on a scale of 1-10 in the following dimensions of our lives. 1 being you’re doing poorly to 10- you’re doing great and everything is super awesome!
- Health
- Financial
- Relationships
- Career
- Spirituality
I suggest we take the time to take a deep dive into how well we are doing in all these dimensions of our lives. Also, take the time to ask yourself why you rated yourself a particular number. For instance, if you rated your health a 5 on a scale of 1-10 ask yourself why. Next, ask yourself what it would take to move your score from say a 5 to a 6, or closer to 10?
It’s also a good idea to journal your thoughts.
New year resolutions are a common trend at the beginning of the year. How come over 70% if resolutions fall by the wayside by the time spring comes around?
I recently looked up the dictionary definition of resolution.
A resolution is ‘a firm decision to do or not to do something.’
Let’s take a look at the first part of that statement- a firm decision.
If you’ve made a New Year Resolution in the past, was it really a firm decision? Or was it just something that seemed smart and savvy to declare at the time. Perhaps when you said it because you believed it at the time. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But it may not have really been a firm decision.
Maybe that is why close to 80% of new year resolutions fail by the end of the first quarter of the year. Yikes! That failure rate seems pretty dismal. So how can we make certain our resolutions work?
While I still feel resolutions have a lot of power to them, I have ccme to the conclusion that perhaps it is not new year resolutions that fail us, it is us who fail our resolutions. This is because of the way we relate to making resolutions.
We should develop a better relationship with the decisions we make for our lives. We can commit to making firm decisions. What better time to press the restart button than the new year?
I think that we make resolutions because we are drawn to want more in our lives. We are intrinsically wired for creation.
You may be wondering why I would be concerned about my patients or clients setting goals, or making firm decisions. After all, I’m a physician and I should only be interested in your health and wellness goals right? Well not entirely. I am also a professionally trained life coach.
In coaching, we have a saying “How you do one thing, is how you do all things”.
For the majority of people out there, in order to move things forward in whatever dimension of their lives perhaps we need a different set of tools. And we can use goals as a powerful tool to move our lives forward.
Using the power of setting goals as a tool
Setting goals is an important tool not only in your personal life but also a business. Goals serve as a compass that helps to point you in the direction of your vision.
Here’s the critical component to setting goals that a lot of people tend to miss. Writing your goals down on paper, and setting up a definite plan to see them to completion is what gives this tool of goal setting so much more power.
It’s been documented that the reason a lot of people do not reach their goals is that they do not write it down.
Setting SMART goals
You’ve probably heard the SMART goals system before.
SMART goals is an acronym that stands for
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Specific
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Measurable
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Achievable
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Results in
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Time
So let’s use an example of setting a goal this year to run your first 5K. Now you want to use the SMART goal system to gauge the likelihood that you will succeed.
Here’s an example of what some of the questions you may want to ask yourself when setting up a SMART goal:
Is this goal specific?
(In this example a 5K run is very specific. Not more, not less)
Is your goal Measurable?
(The distance 5K can easily be measured on a certified race course.)
Do you have the tools to help you achieve your goal?
(You may write down some things you need to put in place to reach your goal such as joining a running group, subscribing to a running program or even hiring a running coach)
When you run this 5K will you see the results?
(You get to decide what results you want to achieve. It may be an overall improvement in your physical fitness, weight loss, etc)
What is the time you have set to achieve these results?
(setting a realistic timeline will set you up for success. So if you have never run before, you may want to work backward from what would be a realistic timeframe for someone like you to prepare for and run in a 5K)
Write down your goals
So let’s go back to your New Year Resolution. Remember that a resolution is a firm decision to do or not to do something.
It’s not that New Year Resolutions don’t work. You now know to make sure that you have SMART goals. The next step is to empower your decision(s) by taking the time to write them down.
More than 80% of people who write down their goals succeed at them.
Now this is not just an intellectual exercise of writing down the goals in a journal and then never looking at them again.
Have your goals in a visible place and read them every day. In fact, Napoleon Hill in his famous book, ‘Think and Grow Rich’ writes of how to read your goals twice a day. Jack Canfield in his book “The Success Principles” also writes about keeping your goals in the forefront of your daily awareness.
By writing and reading out loud your goals, you are priming your subconscious mind to work with you.
Get an Accountability Partner
There’s another reason people fail at their resolutions. They do not hold themselves accountable. So, by as early as February as the novelty of that resolution begins to wear off so does the resolution.
Having an accountability partner could mean the difference between failure and success. With the advent of social media, there are many ways to create accountability these days. One of the more popular ways is to make a declaration of your goals on your social media pages and then ask friends with similar goals to support you or even to join forces with you. You can even form a private group on a social media platform such as Facebook or Whatsapp, to support one another.
But perhaps you want to play a bigger game in your life. Perhaps you have huge goals. This is when you need a life coach as an accountability partner. A life coach is someone who is not biased. A life coach is a stand for you in those times when you begin to falter or doubt yourself.
It’s often said that if you are up to great things in your life, then you need a life coach.
I completely resonate with that. Not just because I am trained as a life coach. It is because I have seen the power that coaching has in creating powerful change in all dimensions of our lives.
When I speak of a whole person approach to living with a living, it goes beyond the number on the scale, it is about showing up more powerfully and living your purpose.
So as we step into 2020, here are some questions that I have for you:
- Are you tired of doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result?
- Are you willing to do something different in 2020?
- What would it look like to create breakthroughs in several dimensions of your life?
- Would you like to have a different relationship to making New Year resolutions and sticking with them throughout the year?
- If you knew you could not fail what dream goal would you like to see manifest in the next 12 months?
If you see 2020 being different for you, then I’d love to speak to you to see whether you would be a fit for my platinum coaching program. It’s a personalized program customized to your unique needs and goals in which you get to work one on one with me for a full year.
I’d love to hear what you’re up to in 2020. If you are interested in scheduling time to have a free 30-minute discovery session, simply send an email to info@doctoreno.com and a member of my team will get back to you.
Here’s to your Health & Wellbeing,
