What are you planning for the new year? Have you made any resolutions? Do you have any big goals for 2015?
New Year’s resolutions are a funny thing. Most people don’t even keep them throughout all of January. I know because I’ve been guilty of the same thing. I’ve promised myself that I would workout everyday in the past and found myself skipping workouts as early as the second week of January. I’ve told myself that I would finally finish a novel only to give up on the whole endeavor by the end of February.
The worst part about breaking these resolutions was that I was breaking a promise to myself. I’d told myself that I’d do something, and then I just didn’t do it. I made up reasons for my failures, but in all honesty I was lying to myself.
I used to lie to myself all the time. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted, but I couldn’t seem to get it done. That was because I wasn’t clear on why I wanted those things. You can say all you want that you would like to write a novel, or learn to draw, or make six figures, but if you are unclear as to why you want it, you’ll never do it.
What is it that draws you toward a particular goal? Why do you really want it? You have to dig deep to get to the real answers. You have to go on a real emotional mining expedition. Are you ready to do that? Good. Because I sure as heck am ready to show you how.
I would like you to think of one goal you’ve made for next year. Write it down on a piece of paper. Now write a list of reasons you want to achieve this goal. I want you to write as many as possible. Aim to write 100 reasons. That’s a lot of reasons, but at the end you’ll know the real emotional reason behind your goal. Knowing that will help you actually achieve it.
For example, let’s say you want to write a novel next year. Why do you want to do that? These might be some reasons you come up with …
- I have a good story to tell.
- I think my story will entertain people.
- I want to make a little extra money.
- Writing a novel was always a dream of mine.
Go on and on like this until you can’t think of anything else. Then when you can’t think of anything else try to think of 10 more reasons. No repeating. Repeating is cheating.
I’m not sure where this exercise came from, but I think I got it from a video I watched by Brian Tracey. Anyway, I did this only last year and it helped clear up a lot of things for me. I’m sure doing the exercise will help you too. You’ll start to get frustrated and feel like you can’t think of any other reasons. You’ll have to work through that, because once you really work through that emotion you’ll get to the core of what you really want.
When you figure out the real reason you want to achieve that goal you might realize that the original goal isn’t even the right one. You might find out that something else in your life will get you to that feeling faster.
I would love for you to sit down and do this exercise because this is going to be your year. Let’s make 2015 the year of possibilities. The year you really start living your dreams. The year you do things differently. This year will require a dramatic change in your thoughts and behavior.[Tweet ” Change your thoughts, change your behavior. Change your behavior, change your life. “]
Takes a tremendous amount of courage to drill that deep into a mine! But agreed, here’s to the possibilities in 2015!
It does take courage, but having that kind of courage prepares you for the road ahead. Putting your true self out into the world is scary, but it is also rewarding. Here’s to possibilities.