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
“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.
“Never limit yourself because of others’ limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination.”
~ Mae C. Jemison
This is sage advice from the first African American woman to travel into space. When she was selected for the NASA astronaut training program in 1987 she was one of 15 out of about 2000 (Biography.com, n.d.) and the first African American woman.
One thing we all can learn from her experience is that giving up on your dream only hurts one person — you. Ultimately, everyone else around you will adjust, or in some cases, not even care. But when we give up on a dream a piece of us dies inside.
Jemison never gave up. She came from humble beginnings, worked her butt off, and didn’t take her eyes off her prize.
What’s your prize? Where are you trying to go? How do you plan to get there?
You need a plan before you can persist and then prosper.
No one can hold you back from achieving your dreams except you. There are many examples of everyday people accomplishing greatness for themselves (not for fame or fortune, necessarily.) If they can, why can’t you?
If what you want to do costs money that you don’t have, make a plan for increasing your income. Make a budget and stick to it. Give up a few “wants.”
If you’re surrounded by unsupportive people, change your environment. Is this easy? Nope. Do it anyway.
People don’t succeed in a vacuum. We all need support from someone else, even if that support isn’t direct. Think about the garbage collector who ensures all your garbage is picked up so that you don’t have to haul it away. That’s a time saving support, right? (This is a simple example just to show how interconnected we all actually are.)
Jemison had supportive people in her corner. Some she saw, some she probably never met — but all of them were there.
Here’s a plan to jump-start your process:
Step 1. Write down your dream in detail. Draw pictures if you want.
Step 2. Believe in your dream. Act as though you’re already there.
Step 3. Surround yourself with a supportive crew.
Step 4. Review your dream daily. Make one stride toward it every day.
Step 5. Read everything related to your dream.
Step 6. Find people already doing what you want to do. Study them.
It’s a simple, but effective plan that won’t cost you anything but time and attention.
Kid, you’ll move mountains! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So get on your way!
~ Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You’ll Go!
Reference:
Biography (n.d.). Mae C. Jemison. Biography.com. Retrieved December 25, 2018, from https://www.biography.com/people/mae-c-jemison-9542378
Seuss, Dr. (1990). Oh the places you’ll go. New York, NY: Random House
“All that we are is the result of what we have thought.”
~ Buddha
When you spend time tearing yourself down for every small infraction it adds up in big ways. Every time you do it, you’re reinforcing a neural network in your brain that says, “You suck.” And because we all experience a negativity bias or have the propensity to lean toward the bad when experiencing various events in our lives, it’s pretty easy to create a negative feedback loop (one bad thing feeds into another, and so on.)
How do you stop this? Is it as simple as, “think happy thoughts?” Not exactly.
Here are a few steps you can take:
Practice mindfulness (Meditation can happen in several ways, so find what works for you. Here’s a great option: Online MBSR, mindfulness-based stress reduction.)
Exercise (My “go-to” reference for all things in this area comes from Dr. John Ratey, though I also love reading John Medina’s work.)
That’s it, actually. Exercise and mindfulness. If I had to add a third to that list it would be: eat a healthful diet. You don’t have to cut out everything you love; you just need to practice a little self-control. Any guesses about what can help with that?
Mindfulness and exercise.
References:
Medina, J. (n.d.). Brain rules. Retrieved December 24, 2018, from http://www.brainrules.net/about-the-author
Nugent, P. (2013, April 7). Bad is stronger than good. Psychology Dictionary, Professional Reference. Retrieved December 24, 2018, from https://psychologydictionary.org/bad-is-stronger-than-good/
Palouse Mindfulness (n.d.) Retrieved December 24, 2018, from https://palousemindfulness.com/
Ratey, J. (n.d.) Retrieved December 24, 2018, from http://www.johnratey.com/
