Quick question: What happened to your New Year’s resolutions? It’s April, and therefore I think it’s reasonable to ask how many of your commitments survived that far into the year? If you are like most people,  it may be time to review and adjust your original goals and then start over. Who says that you have to put your resolutions on hold until  January 1st, 2011?

First step, find out why you gave up on your goals. Did you want to lose weight and were frustrated because you didn’t shed the pounds as fast as you had hoped? Was it too difficult to stop smoking altogether? Did bad weather or sick kids keep you from going to the gym regularly? Review what happenend and how you felt about your commitments as long as the memory is relatively fresh.

The main reason why many people don’t follow through with their New Year’s resolution is that they want too much too fast, and they strive for perfection. Any setbacks, and they give up. If you think that’s you, take another run on your goals – this time only slower and allow for slip-ups.

First, when setting your goal, follow the SMART rule: Define your goal in a way that it is specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound. For example, instead of “Eating healthier” commit to eating two pieces/servings of fruits and a salad and to drink one glass of orange juice daily for the next three months. At the end of each day, you will know whether you kept to your plan. If not, ask what kept you from achieving your daily goal and then make corrections.  If you discover for example that you would prefer salad or cooked vegetables over fruit, go for it.

Don’t be a perfectionist. If you didn’t eat any fruit before, it’s already progress to eat one piece of fruit, even if your plan called for two. Therefore, give yourself credit for it.  Don’t focus on how much you fell short of your goal, instead think positive and focus on how much you achieved.

Take babv steps. If you want to lose weight, don’t aim for losing ten pounds in a month. By aiming too high, you are setting yourself up for failure. Set a realistic goal, like losing one pound per week. If there is a week where you don’t even achieve this goal because of a birthday party or because the muffin in the coffe shop just was too tempting , see it as a learning experience. Temporary set backs are normal, so don’t beat yourself up about perceived weakness.

Tell other people about your goals, and write reminders or use motivating pictures and put them at places where you will see them often. 

And if you still struggle, hire a Life Coach to support you. Think of all the seemingly perfect celebrities you may admire. Most of them have personal trainers or nutritionists to help them stay on course. So, it’s nothing wrong with a little outside help. And if your goal is about your health, see it this way: a little money spend now on a Life Coach could save you later more money spend on doctor fees and hospital bills.

Written by Life Coach Christiane Turnheim. Visit her website at www.coach4u.net or email her <http://www.privatedaddy.com?q=QC9uVFMSdWJYYDNYZBBOCG0ME21ycW42S1E-3D_19>

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” – Henry Ford (American Industrialist,, 1863-1947)

I love this quote because for me it’s a perfect spot on description of Life coaching: Helping people to realize that they are stuck because they took their eyes of the goal and then got lost. The next step in life coaching then is to assist with getting unstuck by reconnecting with life goals.

Some people find it easy to always stay focused on their goals. These are the lucky few. Most people get sidetracked at some point in their lives, others take it day by day without having a bigger goal and a third group doesn’t know, what and where to start because the only things, they see, are obstacles.

Unfortunately, my youngest son belongs to the latter group. Whenever he has to tackle a new project, he starts by telling us why he can’t do it. He lists all the hindrances, difficulties and obstacles he can think of and he can be very convincing that the particular project, whatever it is, is impossible to realize.

Behind all that is fear. He feels overwhelmed because the task at hand seems to be complex, unclear, uncontrollable and unmanageable. Some psychologists believe that a pessimistic approach to the world may be part of the inborn temperament. Regardless of the cause, we have learned that there is a way to work with him.

We must break up any complex task in sub goals and provide a specific time frame for each sub goal. As long as he stays focused on each step (and forgets the big goal) he can move onward.

But don’t say to him “A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step” (Chinese proverb). As soon as he remembers that each successfully mastered step is just that, a step toward the big goal, he feels overwhelmed again. To him, his successes suddenly seem to be so small.

I hope that by growing up he will learn to understand what Henry Ford meant when he said:
“Life is a series of experiences, each of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward.”