New Year…New you
But does it work?

As we start a New Year, many people will decide it’s time for a change. Some serious soul searching takes place and resolutions are made. But the mere start of a New Year is not the catalyst for change. We tend to use the calendar turning its’ page as it is convenient and the reason for change is often guilt…”I really must do more of” etc.

The word used very often is “Goals”. The reality is that we can choose to create goals at any time we wish, and not at the New Year.  One thing is vital. Call it a resolution or goal, it has to be something that we really want to achieve…Nothing abstract and something personal.

We often use the word “motivated”. The reality is that without goals, we have no motivation. It is the creation of goals that provide the motivation.
The key then becomes creating well thought out goals. Let me give you two examples.

I was with a FA Premiership Linesman during a break in a workshop, when we bumped into a newly appointed lower league referee. During the conversation, he mentioned that his goal was to referee a World Cup Final. That is a dream…The point being that there are so many rungs of the ladder to climb, with each level being a very significant achievement, that the end goal was too distant. The goal needed to be one rung at a time, to measure incremental steps and to celebrate each success.

Compare that with John Naber, an Olympic Champion in the swimming pool. Naber was inspired by watching Mark Spitz in the 1972 Olympics. At that time he was a talented American collegiate swimmer but no more.  Naber looked at the times that he would need to achieve if he were to make the Olympic swimming team in the 1976 Montreal games. The gap was just a second or two, but a significant stretch. He worked out that all that he had to do, was to improve at the rate of 1/5^th of the blink of an eyelid for every hour that he could commit to.
A measure was then in place and one that as improvements were made, ticks in the box (incremental motivation), could be made.

And the outcome? Naber made the Olympic team and in doing so, winning one Silver and four Gold medals…All of the latter, being in world record times!
What is it that you really want to achieve? How tangible is it? How realistic?
Make sure that you choose goals that you can picture and that have some stretch…And then with new found drive and motivation, which you can work towards achieving.
Please do contact the Solution Focused office, if you want a complimentary white paper on “Goal Setting”…And remember…Goals are for Life, not just the New Year!