What Are Your Real Goals for 2008?

We've made it through the holidays and set up our resolutions. Today is January 4th, 2008, and some of these resolutions have already been broken. That's ok, just try again. You know why? A resolution, no matter how vague, indicates that inside of you is a sincere desire to make a life-altering change. You may feel that life would be better if only you stopped smoking, lost weight, became nicer to other people, stopped drinking, or something along those lines. But yet your efforts to make positive changes in your life fail. This is painful and causes even the most willing person to give up.

You can make changes in 2008! The secret is to make a goal that is clearly defined with a beginning, middle, and end. Your goals need to be real and applicable to you. For example, many people want to lose weight, but what does that really mean? Some may need to lose 100 pounds while others may need to lose just 20. Be as clear with yourself as possible about what you really want to accomplish this year including what each goal is and when you want to accomplish them. Then be clear with yourself about how you are going to get the goal or goals done. Then follow your action plan.

Here is an example from my life. One of my goals is to stop drinking coffee. I am doing this cold turkey, which means without the aid of slowly reducing my coffee intake or drinking coffee-like substitutes. Here is my plan:

Beginning: January 1st 2008 1st day without coffee
Middle: all year but crisis point first 72 hours detox
End: Dec 31st 2008 will consider myself free of coffee addiction after one year clean
Alternates: No coffee-like substitutes but will drink herbal tea whenever hot drink is desired.
Stress/Cravings: When coffee cravings hit I will talk about, write about it in my journal, call a friend, go for a walk, do yoga, or simply cry.

Ok I've only cried once since quitting coffee LOL! My point is I gave and will continue to give myself space and permission to feel bad when the cravings hit, and to accept the feeling of loss I have over losing this addiction as real. Then the feeling passes and I'm ok. I made it through the crisis point, and I feel confident I will make it through the year because of my action plan.

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