Everybody loves the New Year! It’s fresh, it’s motivating, it’s hopeful and encouraging. Now that it is February how do we keep that feeling going all year long. Some people look forward to goal setting for the year and some dread it and put it off because they already feel like a failure. Can I offer a different perspective that has helped me tremendously?

I was usually the one who hated making resolutions because I already felt like a failure and felt like I was just setting myself up for more failure by making goals. If I never set them I never let myself down, I thought it was the perfect win win. What I found out was life went on, with or without me, and the goals were simply a measuring device for success. Not whether or not you hit them, but what did you accomplish. It gives us something tangible to look back and see progress in either direction.

If we think about goal setting as a car it might make this easier. A car is a tool that gets us from point A to point B. It doesn’t have emotions or personalize things, it is just the tool. The car only goes in the direction that we point it in. The car only stays on that path if we steer it, keep our foot on the gas pedal, brake when necessary and continue to make corrections based on the circumstances going on. It’s a fluid process. If we take the rigidity out of goal setting, where so many of us think it is set in stone and think of it more like a fluid process, it reduces anxiety. We also reduce the fear of failure by doing this. When we realize things can be corrected all along the way we have a better chance for success. That doesn’t mean we are lowering our goals and expectations to make them so easy they don’t even challenge us, but it does mean making small corrections at times in our path to stay the course, or realize that we might need to put more tools in our toolbelt to achieve those loftier goals.

Using our car visual, it is easy for us to see when we look back at the road behind where, how far we have travelled, and what we came through. When we look forward we can often see what might be coming ahead based on signs, road conditions, weather or traffic. All of these items help us to navigate our path so that we can continue on that path making forward progress, but also to encourage us to keep pressing on or make slight changes because we are veering off the road and need to get back on track.

If we are feeling discouraged or unmotivated, if we stop and reassess the road we have already travelled and what the coming conditions might be like, it will often encourage us to keep going, or make slight changes to get back on track. It can even show us that we are much closer to the finish line than we thought. All of this brings new motivation, energy and resolve to keep pressing on. Unfortunately with society’s busy busy go go lifestyle it tends to propentiate the negativity and discouragement. The way we get around this is by making a priority and putting it on our calendar every year, every month, every quarter to check and reassess our goals. It doesn’t have be tons of time, it could simply be 1 hour a month where the phone and computer are turned off and it is uninterrupted time. If we never look out the windows of our cars we are bound to have an accident.

So I would like to challenge you to put it on your calendar now. It’s never too late to start setting goals. Yes stop reading this and go do it, then come back and finish 😉 Then make an appointment with an accountability partner, someone who you will check in with and discuss these items. Have fun with it, make it a monthly celebratory dinner out or date night with your spouse, or massage when you hit them, but definitely Celebrate all wins, CAW!!! That is the most motivating and encouraging piece we have. If you want an accountability partner and are not sure how to get one email me at info@americanmadehomesolutions.com or call us at 360-386-7493. We would be happy to connect you with a local person or you can join us! Let’s keep Crushing it in 2018!