As we muddle through this crazy, busy time of year, I want to bring up a subject that will soon be on all are minds come New Year’s Eve.
Goal setting (aka New Year’s Resolutions).
As I have written before in one of my blog posts, setting goals is as important to your success in life as breathing is to living.
Both Harvard and Yale have conducted studies over the years that have proven the importance of writing down our goals and reading over them often. Here are the stats of both studies that might make you rethink setting goals:
3% of the studied graduates that had clear, written goals averaged earnings 10 times greater than the other 97% of graduates that did not have written goals.
Those stats were taken in 1953 and 1979. Ummmmm, still relevant I bet.
Of course there is the proverbial, “I’m going to lose 25 pounds starting January 1st.”
But that is not the type of goal I am speaking of here.
We must go further. Physical goals are important, but I believe we can get distracted with the same ole, same ole, and never really give much thought to what we really want.
What do you really, really want?
I’ll share some personal goals I had in the past and reached and then moved on to write new goals and work on those. I’m going to share stuff I don’t usually share with anyone, so bear with me.
Two years ago I decided I needed to learn to guard my time better. I’m a giver and as a mother and wife I have a tendency to put everyone first, accept me. You know exactly what I’m talking about! It’s one thing to know it; it’s another thing to do something about it.
I realized my life was running me and I was not running my life. So, I took a year off. What I really did was to take a year saying “No” more, and “Yes” less often.
You can read about that here: http://staging.lynnbryson.com/my-year-off/
That year gave me time to breathe and to learn extremely valuable lessons about myself. That goal, learning to guard my time, was a very important goal for me. I did it! I reached it, and am proud to say it has spilled over into so many other areas of my life and improved my life in ways I never imagined.
Another goal I set was to become financially debt free. My husband and I are still working on that goal but I am proud to say we are half-way there and not giving up.
Now I have some new goals.
1) Slow down
2) Enjoy moments during the day
3) Heal some old wounds
4) Improve my health
5) Give randomly
I read these goals every week. I keep them in my billing file because I know I have to pull out that file every Friday to pay bills and I always enjoy reading my goals (paying bills…not so much). It helps me to remember what really is important to me at this time in my life.
How about you?
Get real about your goals. Let’s be the 3% of 2016!!
#smallsteps
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