Habits and Goals
If you have committed to developing and attaining personal goals for the New Year, you will likely need to develop new habits to attain these goals. For example, if your goal is to lose weight, you will need to develop the habit of eating less and moving more. Sometimes the new habit itself will be the goal. For example, quitting smoking requires a daily habit of inhaling only air. Your goal will be to maintain habits that are in alignment with your goal. Habit change requires daily focus.
Some general habits that can support a variety of goals include:
– Reviewing your goals daily
– Keeping a daily journal about progress (and gratitude for what you have)
– Repeating daily affirmations that reinforce the beliefs, thoughts and feelings you need to keep focus on your goals.
– A time of quiet reflection, meditation or prayer (depending on what works best for you) where you can detach from your typical thought pattern. Detaching from you typical internal dialogue can help you modify your internal dialogue to help develop thoughts, feelings and beliefs that support your new habits/actions
– Use a phone app or journal to keep track your habits for personal accountability. I currently use the phone app “Habit Streak” to quickly check off each habit that I have completed on a daily basis.
Get Back on the Wagon
I have heard that the saying “falling off the wagon” was developed during the time where settlers where moving out west in wagon trains. Those that drank too much would “fall off the wagon” and thus fall behind the wagon train. Imagine that the “wagon” is your goal or the vision of where you want to go in life. If you fall off the wagon, GET UP, and get back on the wagon! You do not want to be left alone on the proverbial prairie. Even if you “slip up” on your goal by eating that cupcake or smoking that cigarette, choose to re-commit to your goal Right Now! Often when people make a backward step or mis-step towards their goal, they may go in a downward spiral by thinking “I have messed up, I guess that it does not matter anymore”. NO, Get up! Get back on the wagon! If you have made a mistake, you may need to do some more work on analyzing your beliefs and feelings. You may need to spend more time with personal affirmations that reinforce that you CAN DO IT!
Influence Versus Control 