No More Monkey On My Back...

And by “monkey” I mean “New Year Resolutions”.

As an infamous planner of all things I will improve, change, do or eliminate, it was a big deal for me to just enter 2018 as is. This is not to say that I am moving ahead completely willy nilly (love that term)- Just without resolutions.

This year it is all about a few goals. Goals/Resolutions - Aren’t they the same thing? You ask. Nope, related... but different.

The definition of a resolution: “A decision or determination; a resolve: to make a firm resolution to do something” where as a goal is defined as “the result or achievement toward which effort is directed”.

According to research roughly 92% of people fail at keeping their resolutions. There is comfort in knowing I have not been alone. Achieving goals doesn’t have a great track record either but it improves by 80% if you play by some rules. Motivational speaker Tony Robbins emphasizes SMART goal setting. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, (in a )Time frame.

It makes sense. People who successfully achieve their goals write them down and consistently work at them. So, I’ve stepped outside my norm and set a few goals. I have studied the steps needed to define and map out a goal, done goal setting exercises, written a timeline and embraced the importance of eating frogs (doing the things you need to do whether you want to or not). It was an exhausting, messy process full of swear words and ½ a pretty notebook worth of scraped paper. ( I believe writing things down in something pretty makes it coffee table worthy and important)

But I came through it with my top three goals on a chalk board in my kitchen and I have committed to doing something...anything - every day towards attaining said goals. It is a work in progress and some days the ‘anything’ has been simply reading my goals, visualizing their fruition and being thankful that I haven’t already blown my new year resolutions.

Wishing you all a monkey free MMXVIII (2018).

Lezli

P.S. A shameless plug. Our son has launched a new music project. It’s called MMXVIII, a collection of 24 songs that he and his music soul mate have written and recorded. A new song will be released every other Friday through the entire year. Here is a link to their first song. I hope you enjoy it and If you do that you share it with fellow music lovers. No goal required of me – being proud of this man and his passion to follow a dream!