PREPARING FOR NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS IN SEPTEMBER?

With more than half of 2015 now behind us and the remaining months speeding along in front of us, I found myself thinking the other day about those ubiquitous resolutions we all make amidst the celebration and dawn of a New Year! 

My thoughts drifted to how I go about preparing for New Year Resolutions, we make these with a renewed enthusiasm and, perhaps for many of us, with good intention to make the year ahead a better one and to do things differently! 

This annual ritual of making New Year Resolutions is absolutely a good thing to do and can act as a tonic that refreshes us with renewed enthusiasm and a can do attitude! 

The question is how long does this last? 

My thoughts wanted to dig deeper and ponder on the differences between the resolutions I made in the distant past and the resolutions I make now as a Coach.

IN THE PAST, when I made resolutions that’s all they ever were really – New Year Resolutions – with no specific goal in mind and certainly no action plan in place.  To be honest, they could only be described as ‘stationary’ – with nowhere to go they gathered no momentum and I allowed the ebb and flow of life to carry me along …… away from, rather than towards my goals.

TODAY, the difference is that as a Coach I use and apply my coaching skills to ‘fine tune’ my resolutions into attainable and realistic goals with timescales and action plans designed to keep me focused and motivated.  And, it feels so good to be making things happen so that my life is the way I want it to be.

NOW, as I write this and the autumn is beginning I think about what I will achieve in the next year.  It’s important to me, to be able to look back with confidence on the decisions that I have made in the past 12 months and the things I have achieved and look forward with certainty and positivity to how I will build on that to make the next 12 months truly rewarding!

To plan ahead, I now reflect upon how I achieved things in the past 12 months.  I have focused on what’s important to me.  The answer to that is my daughter who lives and works in London.  12 months ago, I committed to spending more time with her and I have done this.  I visit her vintage events and we spent a week’s holiday in Scotland.  Taking this time out of my busy work schedule has enabled me to be close to her and to have regular downtime too.

I made this happen by noticing what’s important to me.  Then taking charge of my diary and booking time out.  It’s easy to do the opposite and to allow time to take charge of me, so I caught that behaviour and made a conscious decision to change it.

Here it is in a nutshell - 3 simple steps I would recommend that you take some time out to:

1. Commitment to makings things happen
2. Notice what is important to you
3. Take charge of your diary and book some time out that meets that value

Three simple steps to feeling that life is working for you!  Give it a go – I’d love to hear what changes for you.

Cheers!

Mary x