Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
Henry Ford
A new year is just around the corner. What resolutions are you making? Out of curiosity, what’s your success rate at keeping them? Mine was always horrible.
Personally, I’m not a big fan of resolutions and haven’t made any for years. I prefer spending the months of November and December assessing the current year, and then plotting a course for the next one.
Here’s a strategy you can borrow (’cause years ago I’m fairly certain that I borrowed it from someone else.)
Assess the current year. What were your big wins? What didn’t you actually make time to do? Hint: Drop those. You had all year. Unless something extraordinary happened or will happen in January, whatever that was isn’t a priority in your heart.
Choose no more than 3 big goals. Honestly, this is a random number, but having too many goals causes you to spread yourself thin. And, in the habit realm, too many changes make one change virtually impossible.
Write your big goals down, each on its own paper. Title it something fun like, “My BIG Audacious Goal.”
Then, and this is critical — ask yourself these questions:
What baby steps can I take to reach my goal by the end of the year?
Whose help will I need?
What’s my “if, then” plan for those days when things aren’t going the way I’ve hoped?
How will I track my goal?
Who will help hold me accountable to reach my goal?
How will I handle setbacks?
How will I celebrate my small successes?
The key to achieving big goals is breaking them into bite-size pieces that you can gnaw on until they go down smooth.
References:
Mindtools (n.d.) Eight common goal-setting mistakes. Retrieved December 30, 2018, from https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/goal-setting-mistakes.htm
Tedx Talks (2012). Forget big change, start with a tiny habit. BJ Fogg at Tedx Fremont. Retrieved December 30, 2018, from https://youtu.be/AdKUJxjn-R8
“We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.”
~ Marie Curie
What’s your dream career? What is the one thing you’d do even if no one paid you?
For me, it was training and development work. I spent 10 years teaching people how to find, keep, and move up in their job. In addition to this, I taught “soft skills” and how to provide excellent customer service. When I entered the field I had no idea how much I would love it.
Then I left. There were good reasons for me to leave at the time. I’m sharing this with you because sometimes, we have to take a few steps away or back so that we can see the big picture.
In 2003, I started a tea company from the ground up, became an expert, and enjoyed teaching people about tea and tisanes. But (I bet you saw this coming!) after several years I realized something was missing. It wasn’t until I made the decision to return to school for a master’s degree that I finally figured it out.
I’d walked away from my mission and I felt it in my soul.
What are you walking away from? What’s the gift that you have to share with everyone at whatever cost?
You won’t be content until you return to what your heart is telling you to do.
Will it be easy? Maybe. Will it be challenging? Probably. Will you feel deeply satisfied every time your head hits the pillow because you’re “walking your walk, and talking your talk?”
“Doing just a little bit during the time we have available puts you that much further ahead than if you took no action at all.”
~ Pulsifer, Take Action; Don’t Procrastinate
Oftentimes we read or watch something that includes the message that we only have 24 hours in a day to accomplish what we want, so we need to get moving, we need to go after “it.”
That number is wrong.
We have the moment we’re in. That’s it. We choose how to spend each of our moments, and if we’re fortunate they add up to a full day.
From this perspective, “it” can’t wait until tomorrow or the next day. If you want to achieve a goal, you have to focus on it in as many moments as possible.
Most of us juggle a variety of commitments. That’s life. But if we really want to achieve the extraordinary for ourselves, we need to remember to include baby steps toward that end throughout the seconds, minutes, and hours we have.
The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists.
Japanese Proverb
Finish this sentence:
Resilience is ______________________________.
In Rick Hanson’s book, Resilience: Find your inner strength, he outlines 12 primary inner strengths that can be developed. As you grow in each strength your resilience increases.
He categorizes how we fulfill our needs into four areas and identifies three strengths we can nurture in each in order to meet our basic needs for safety, satisfaction, and connection. They are:
Recognizing (compassion, mindfulness, learning)
Resourcing (grit, gratitude, confidence)
Regulating (calm, motivation, intimacy)
Relating (courage, aspiration, generosity)
Being resilient doesn’t involve superhuman powers, a particular skill set, or a high IQ. It does require something Jaime Escalante so eloquently expressed in the movie, Stand and Deliver (1988).
Do you have the desire?
And, it certainly helps if you cultivate a healthy sense of humor.
References:
Hanson, R. (2018). Resilience: Find your inner strength. London: Rider
Movieclips, (2017, June 27). Stand and Deliver: All we need is ganas scene. Retrieved December 27, 2018, from https://youtu.be/A2yqIm58ULo
“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”
~ Maya Angelou
We don’t know who we are until our metal has been tested. Challenges we experience every day are our test.
When we get knocked down, we all know by now that whether we get back up is what matters. Sometimes, getting back up time and again is exhausting. But this is one way we build our resilience.
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