New Year's Goals

It’s New Year’s time. Get those dusty old goals out and and polish them for the new year. While your friends are making New Year’s resolutions you can be setting goals and achieving success. How many people make New Year’s resolutions on January 1 and give them up by January 30th? Why? There are at least two reason for this. First, some people are not the structured goal setting type. Second, some folks only work with part of a plan to succeed.

In the first case, you may prefer to stay open to new information and be flexible when making decisions. Rigorous goal setting may be outside your mode or abilities. It doesn’t mean that you do not set goals, you have goals and attain those goals in a different way. In Myers-Briggs terminology you deal with the outside world as a “P” or perceptive person. The “P” folks out there prefer a, “...spontaneous way of life, and like to understand and adapt to the world rather than organize it.” That’s okay.

The second case presents others who set goals but forget to realize and keep in mind the benefits of achieving the goal. Or they don’t break down the big goal into smaller bites and set time lines. Or they don’t write down the goal and communicate it to people who might help.

There is more that goes into goals than just making a resolution. Goals need to be written down, shared, committed to a time line and tied to a benefit. Plus, each step or mini goal needs to be recognized, appreciated, and celebrated when it’s met. Often goals are made and written down, but then our daily activity doesn’t fit into meeting our goal.

Like my friend and chiropractor tells me, things work better when they are in alignment. That holds true for our physical body and our lives. This is the case for those of us who are more spontaneous in our goals and for those of us who find comfort in planning out the detailed steps in achieving our goals.

It’s New Years; may this year be happy, prosperous and successful for you.