A New Year!

On December 30 I went away on a day-long retreat to celebrate my wins for 2008, deepen my learning on the parts of my life that did not go the way I wanted them to, and get clear about my intentions and goals for the New Year.

Studies have shown that many people start off the New Year with resolutions, and by the third week into January, they've already "blown it" and have given up on striving toward those goals.

Who says that we have to start working on our goals the first of the year? We can start fresh anytime we choose! It's okay to make mistakes, as long as we learn from them and make adjustments. That's just the way we learn.

I've found three key ingredients to successful planning for the New Year:

1. Celebrate your wins for the past year.
2. Clarify your intentions for the coming year, as well as the motivations behind them!
3. Build in daily accountability and support as you live through the coming year with intention.
   

Before planning for the coming year, I encourage you to celebrate your wins for the year that just ended. You may not realize how much you have accomplished, so I am sharing a resource that will help you to record and celebrate your wins.

CLARIFY YOUR INTENTIONS AND THE MOTIVATIONS
BEHIND THEM:

At year-end I received this email from one of my mentors, Jack Canfield.

Are you ready to get moving in 2009?

My coaching staff sure is! They wasted NO TIME in putting together a collective Vision Board in their offices. It's something everyone contributed to as a daily reminder of what they're wanting to create for themselves and our customers in 2009.

What stands out most is their vision board mantra, "LIVE BIG." BIG is an acronym for Be In Gratitude, an inspiring daily affirmation to live in gratitude.

Will you be ushering in 2009 with optimism, gratitude, and clarity … or pessimism, lack and confusion?

Don't let a shrinking economy dictate your level of success or fulfillment! To thrive in 2009, it's essential to stay in gratitude, keep focused on your goals, learn new skills, take inspired actions, and develop supportive habits.

By maintaining a positive and joyous emotional state (and laser-like focus on what you want) you're practically guaranteed to achieve your goals.

You probably have a few New Years resolutions for yourself, but do you have written goals that are specific, measurable, and BIG enough to really take you to the next level?

If not, I've created a simple, yet effective, worksheet for plotting   out your goals and intentions for 2009. This free resource is available via download here.

Enjoy! 

In love and gratitude,

Jack Canfield, America's #1 Success Coach
Taking you from where you are to where you want to be

Jack's worksheet is an excellent tool for getting clear about what you want to be different in several areas of your life. When you complete this worksheet, I encourage you to dig as deep as you can for the WHY behind your intentions. For example, if one of your goals is to leave your office by 5 PM daily, you might be inclined to write down for your WHY, "Work less hours." I am asking you to identify what is behind that.something that has some juice to it! A deeper WHY might be, "so I can be home for dinner with my family and build deeper bonds with my spouse and kids." The best way to uncover the deeper WHY is to ask yourself "so what.." Or another way to get at it is to complete this sentence:

I want ______ (your goal) so that I can ________ (your deeper why).

Every time you say YES to someone or something, you are, in fact, saying NO to someone or something else. By identifying the deeper WHY, you are creating a more compelling reason to say NO to an old habit or activity so you are available to say YES to a new intention.

Last fall I started connecting daily with an accountability partner, and it has really made a difference in my success.  I would like to share how that works, and encourage you to consider doing something similar.  Click here to access information about how to set up an effective accountability partnership.