WHAT CAN POSSIBLY STOP YOU?

Pursuing our dreams, goals and action steps is such a personal endeavor that it’s challenging to speak in generalities. Unless you stay focused and resolved to stick to it, distractions will steer you off track repeatedly. That’s why it’s important to first write down your plan in as much detail as you know at this point, then develop a daily routine and mental mind jogs to help you keep your vision in mind.

If you’ve been doing your action steps over the past couple blogs, you’ve taken significant steps to help you keep those “resolutions” we first started discussing. You’ve made a list and prioritized it so you can hold a steady course on the most important goals for the year. You’ve broken your goal down into manageable steps and identified which have to be taken first. That is your plan. Once your plan is in hand, your ability to continue doing whatever it takes to achieve your goal hinges on your feelings about it.

Did you remember to create that C.R.A.P. sheet? If you’ve continued to write on it since I first mentioned it, you may have quite a list of negative comments by now. All this negativity is coming from the default protective part of your brain that is the repository for all the reasons you start telling yourself about why you cannot achieve your dreams and goals.

If you are to stay focused on your goals long enough to achieve the really big and important ones that require major change and a series of accomplishments to attain, you are going to have to deal with all the negative thought habits you have accumulated over a lifetime. These thoughts may be the result of parental conditioning. They may be the result of media bombarding you from all directions and the community’s opining on events that concern them. They may be thoughts and feelings you have built up about the circumstances in which you find yourself.

If you are feeling overwhelmed, you can keep breaking your goals into ever smaller tasks. You can look at various life categories (like health, wealth, family, spouse, service to community) and see if something else you value is demanding your attention. Be honest about your priorities and resolve the conflict between your values by allocating your time to honor both your choices.

You can recognize negative paradigms by the negative self-talk you are experiencing. You can see them on that paper you’ve been writing. You hear them in your excuses: I don’t have the time. My family needs me too much. They take up all my time. Work takes too much of my time. I don’t have the money. I’m too old. I have a physical disability.

You can hear it in the negative ways you describe yourself: I’ll never be able to do this. It’s too hard. I don’t know how. People don’t want to work with me. I’m too fat, too thin, too old, too young, and on and on.

So when you start out the New Year, making your resolutions, you need to note the commentary going on in your mind. Watch for evidence of the symptoms that will shut down your progress toward your goal. Are you feeling distracted? Procrastinating? Are you afraid? Are you stuck, repeating the same scenario year in and year out like a version of Groundhog Day? Whatever the source, your brain is designed to default to the negatives as a way of protecting you from pain, suffering and annihilation.

However, your brain is frequently misinformed and it’s up to you to take control and literally flip your thinking to the positive side where possibility exists.

If you find your goals getting sidetracked, take the time to learn to learn the techniques that help you flip your thinking. You can do it. You can develop your inner game through affirmations, afformations, meditation, centering exercises, guided imagery and other similar activities, as part of a daily routine that supports your forward progress. You can start to work with others who can help you clear away the obstacles so you can get out of your own way. You can make the changes that make all things possible.

There are a million excuses to stop you and a million reasons why you should surge ahead. It’s your choice. As I say in my book, you can choose Rainbows Over Ruins. I have faced the same challenges and I have used these techniques to improve my life significantly.

Go for it! Pursue the life of your dreams, your goals and resolutions with your navigation chart in your hands and individual steps identified. You can move through them step by step as you become aware of what is next required.

What if 2015 can be the best year of your life? May you know why and how you can make it so.

To Your Success,

Susan