The Winter Blues

So did you like so many other people set goals for the New Year? If so how are they going?

This is the most common time of year for the goals to be forgotten or given up on – just 2 months in. That’s right, most people who set goals for the New Year have already forgotten them or given up on them.

I know that there have been times in my past when I have changed my goals after only a few weeks because doubt and fear set in. I start the year with all the good intentions and diligently write out my goals every day to programme them into my subconscious mind. But then I hit the first couple of set backs, time seems so short and there are so many other things that place demands on my time, or someone laughs at my dreams. Then the certainty that I had when I set the goal begins to wane, I start to question the desire and wonder if I can really achieve these things. Finally the same old habitual routing takes over and before I know it I am at the end of February and nothing has been achieved to take my dreams forward.
This is nothing unusual which is why so many people never get past the end of February with their goals.

The fact is that most people do not realise that setting a goal that is outside of the realms of what has been achieved before requires a different level of thinking and different habits – you need to think different and act different if you actually want different result. That requires will power, persistence and a willingness to think in new ways.

So I changed the way I think about my goals, instead of creating a plan of action and taking it step by step hoping I have thought of everything in advance, I create basic outlines of a plan and then create 3 or 4 other outline plans, then I sort out what is the best next step in all 4 plans. I then choose 1 or 2 and act on both of them.

As time goes by one plan will seem better than the other and I will focus more on that plan. The main benefit is that I can now be quite flexible in my approach and I do not need to worry if the plan I am working fails, I always have another few plans to work.

The reason why this works for me is that knowing I have multiple ways of achieving my goal improves my belief in my ability to reach it, which helps me to be far me determined, persistent and forthright.