Goals

It's getting close to the goal setting time of the year. We can forget about New Year's Resolutions since the one thing that's true about them is that almost no one actually follows through. So, why is is that we don't follow through? What keeps us stuck? Here's what I think:

1) Our daily lives interfere. We already have our days crammed full, and we don't take the time to think about what we can eliminate to make room for new activities.
2) We make resolutions that are what we think we SHOULD change rather than what we truly want to change. Therefore, there's no real excitement about the results we would get from making the changes. No real motivation.
3) We don't make a plan for how we're going to do them. If we're going to do something new; something challenging, it's not going to happen without a plan.
4) We try to do it all alone, without any help from anyone. A lot of us keep our challenges a secret so we won't be embarrassed if we fail - which, of course, sets us up to fail.
5) We want results quickly and give up if we don't get them quickly. Any plan we make needs to include plans for keeping our motivation high over the long haul.
6) We want perfection and so give up right away when we don't do things perfectly. But that's how learning something new works. We make mistakes; we learn.

Instead of making a list of New Year's resolutions on January 1, let's start now thinking about what we really want for next year and begin planning for how we're going to get it.