First and Foremost!

  • Start Small, Build on your wins. Make it hard to quit, build in rest stops, plan for plateaus! i.e. I will play racquetball 4 out of 7 days, I will journal faithfully (not necessarily daily). We all stumble and fall down, it’s just that quitters give up and stay down. Remember, the first time you quit it becomes easier and easier.

Second:

  • Desire is stronger than Discipline. Make sure your goals are tied into YOUR values, YOUR passions, YOUR dreams. This may require growing your self-awareness, spending some time observing yourself. Discipline is great, it’s the nudge you often need to get going, to turn your resolutions into habits. But after a while, if discipline is the only thing keeping you going, best check in with your inner self and have some introspection time. As Tony Robbins said: “People are not lazy. They simply have impotent goals— goals that do not inspire them.”

Third:

  • Goals are strongest when they are part of an overall life plan. You have six major roles in life; it is important to have goals for all your roles, complete with action plans and accountability dates. Hint! It’s ok if they start out a bit fuzzy, the important thing is to get them out there, start thinking about them on an ongoing basis. As you visit them regularly, they will come into focus. Do NOT try to do it all at once (see First and Foremost above). As you dwell on them, they will naturally pull you forward. To quote Brian Tracy: “People with clear, written goals accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could ever imagine.”

          Six Major Life Roles

Family / Personal
Education / Mental
Physical / Health
Social / Community
Spiritual / Creative
Career / Financial

Fourth:

  • Journal! Self-awareness and feedback are vital tools and help improve your EQ. When I set a goal, I write down the why plus how I think my life will be different, how I believe I will feel when I achieve. Comparing my emotional predictions with subsequent reality is terrific feedback, helps tremendously in finetuning my goal setting. Samuel Thomas Davies: “If you want to learn how to commit to your goals in the long term, you have to develop an identity that drives the behaviors you need to achieve them.”

Closing Quotes:

“People with goals succeed because they know where they are going. It’s as simple as that.” – Earl Nightingale, 1921-1989

“In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.” – Robert Heinlein, 1907-1988

“I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacation with better care than they do their lives. Perhaps that is because escape is easier than change.” – Jim Rohn, 1930-2009

As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier