I’m sure you noticed that I didn’t write about New Years Resolutions or goal setting this holiday. The reason is because everyone is doing it. If you know me, you know I don’t like doing what ‘everybody else’ does so I am going to wait a few more weeks and then offer you a fre.e Masterclass on goal setting and achieving.
Resolutions (and most goal setting programs) often don’t work for a few reasons. If you want to know what does work to achieve your goal, check this out…
People usually party and ‘let loose’ during the holidays and then feel physically awful and regretful and so they make a ‘resolution’ to get healthy, lose weight, etc. The ENTIRE methods is flawed so I suggest you stay away from the masses who act like asses every single year and learn the right way to achieve your goals.
If there is ONE thing you can do to that will help you see your results, its this. First understand the difference between inspiration and motivation and then get clear on WHY You want your goal/resolution. This exercise holds MORE POWER than any New Years resolution.
Motivated or Inspired?
Inspiration – stimulation or arousal of the mind, feelings, etc., to special or unusual activity or creativity.
Etymology – animating force or vital principle in man and animals. From Latin, spiritus “soul, courage, vigor, breath, breath in as in inspiration.
Motivate – to stimulate toward action, transitive verb: To provide with an incentive; move to action; impel.
Motivate generally refers to an outside source. People hire trainers to motivate them to workout…or a kids’ father claps his hands and yells ‘lets get it together kids’ to motivate his children to get to school on time.
Inspiration comes from within. This is your secret to success. Your goal must be INSPIRING if you expect to see it. Hiring a trainer for guidance is wise. Hiring a trainer for motivation demonstrates that you truly don’t value your goal. If you hired a trainer for motivation, then I suggest you do this exercise now…
Ask yourself..how inspiring is my goal?
Saying ‘I wanna lose 20 lbs’ doesn’t inspire or motivate anyone as far as I can tell. This is ONE of the many reasons so many people fail in this country w diet & fitness. The goal is SIMPLY NOT INSPIRING enough.
HOW TO GET INSPIRED
Take your main goal (i.e. lose 20 lbs) and link it to areas of your life you LOVE and SPEND A LOT OF TIME, MONEY and DISCIPLINE on. This will help you identify your Core Values. For example, if you love your kids (children are one of your core values), link your goal to your kids. How will losing 20 lbs BENEFIT your kids?
Don’t just think about it. WRITE IT DOWN and DO IT NOW!
Oh, and don’t expect your goal to just ‘show up’. You may need to do this work every day for a week or two or maybe a month. It all depends on overweight & unhealthy you are NOW. The more chubby or sluggish you are, the more work you need to do. You’ll know you’ve done the work when you see your results.
The more BENEFITS you come up with, the better. If you have failed at anything in the past, its simply because you did not value that thing enough. This exercise will help you create MORE VALUE surrounding your goal. Yeah there may be more issues involved, but this is a PRIMARY REASON for success or failure in human endeavors.
There are basically 7 areas of life:
1 – Spiritual (whatever inspires you. this doesn’t have to be religious and it should be based on YOUR definition, not anyone else)
2 – Personal (mental/emotional health)
3 – Physical (all things physical, including your body, health, fitness, material things, possessions)
4 – Career
5 – Financial
6 – Social
7 – Relationships
Take your goal and link the BENEFITS of achieving that goal to the top 2-3 areas you value most. Do you love socializing? Find out how your goal will BENEFIT that.
Love your career? Uncover the many ways your goal BENEFITS or SUPPORTS your career.
I STRONGLY encourage anyone who has struggled to lose weight to get started on this exercise and don’t stop until you see at least 20 pounds drop.
WHAT TO DO NEXT
Take your goals and write them down in PRESENT TENSE.
For example: ‘I am so happy and grateful now that I am 20 lbs leaner and look like a rockstar.’ ‘I am so blessed and feel like a champ now that I got off meds and stabilized my blood pressure.’
Energize it daily. Read it, think about it, visualize it and feel the feelings of already achieving it.
Create a vision board with images of your goals. Be realistic and find images that inspire you and you can achieve.
This will EXPEDITE your results. Much like planting a garden, give it love and watch it grow. Ignore it and watch it die.
Visualize yourself having ALREADY ACHIEVED your goals. Feel what it feels like to have flat abs, mental/emotionally balanced and a strong sense of accomplishment and personal power. Do this often.
Write out an ACTION PLAN – how will you create your results? WHat must happen in order for you to be successful? Answer these questions and create an action plan. This is where the right websites, books and friends come in handy. Chunk down your goal into manageable steps. Put it in your calendar now.
Along your journey, you are bound to encounter challenges. Having a goal that inspires you and is meaningful will catapult you over the challenges that you will face.
If you want to lose weight and you don’t do this (or similar) goal setting exercises, you are fooling yourself and might as well order Weight Watchers and watch TV.
Here is a great video I strongly encourage everyone to watch this video on ‘Why we do what we do, and how we can do it better’