It’s the first day of December. The last month of 2017. If you look back to last January, what were your goals and aspirations for 2017 that required a firm commitment on your part? How many of those goals have you accomplished? However many you have, be sure to congratulate yourself for each and every one of them.
There’s something in our nature that makes it easy for us to notice what we haven’t accomplished rather than what we have. That kind of negativity will keep you from moving forward.
Success Starts Here
Here are my top motivators for moving toward success in anything you want to accomplish:
focus on the positive
have a specific, achieveable goal in mind
write down what you want to accomplish, and when
let go of things that get in the way of accomplishing your goal
Let’s say that back in January you said you were going to eat healthy because you know that’s good for you, and might help you lose weight. You did okay for awhile, but then old habits slipped right back in. You called yourself hopeless, or a loser, and that was the end of your aspirations. Instead, you reinforced the belief that you could not do it.
Here’s what might work better.
You decide you want to eat healthy.
You define exactly what that means for you. It might be that you will cook at home more with fresh ingredients.
That’s a great idea, and now you need to add more sepcifics that enable you to be successful. Let’s say you’ve been eating all your meals in restaurants or through take-out. It would not be realistic to say going forward from day 1 that you will cook all your food at home. That’s a setup for failue.
You might decide that 3 nights a week is an achievable number for cooking at home with fresh ingredients. Go for it. And be even more specific. Look at your calendar for each upcoming week and plan which nights cooking at home works for you. That’s a recipe for sucess!
Always congratulate yourself for each successful week. If you run into an off-week, look at why you fell of the rails and make an immediate course correction. Remind yourself that all the other weeks were successes and one off week won’t be your focus.
Working this into your life during the busy month of December is indeed achievable if you set your mind to it. In fact, it’s especially important now because i will offset some of the effects of holiday gatherings if you are better nourished on a more consistent basis. You’ll be much less apt to mindlessly go for all the goodies that appear through the month.
Get a few good weeks under your belt in December and you’ll be ready for deeper work in recovering your vibrant self in 2018.
Stand with success and you will succeed!