Giving Gratitude For The Amazing Year That Has Been

With another Christmas come and gone, this is the time of year when most people are starting to think about making the annual New Year’s Resolution which traditionally only lasts about a week! 

I’m not a great believer in the whole New Year’s Resolution thing for the precise reason that they are so temporary for most people.  But I do believe in Goal Setting.  The problem for most people is that the way we have been taught to do Goal Setting for so long is just plain wrong.  So today I want to launch the first in a 2 part Blog on Goal Setting. 

In the New Year, I’ll be following up with part 2 on why most of what you have learned about Goal Setting in the past is setting you up for failure and how you can instead use new POWERFUL methods of Goal Setting to almost guarantee your results.

But before all of that, I find that the best thing to do before you start to think about your Goals for 2016 and beyond is to think back on the year that HAS BEEN and do a Year in Review.  I do a Year in Review every year, to look back on what has happened over the past year, the struggles that I’ve had, the wins that I’ve had, the things that I’ve learned and all the things that I’ve been grateful for throughout the year.

I find personally that taking inventory of the year that has been is a great way to build a solid foundation for the year ahead.  The problem with most “New Year’s Resolutions” is that they tend to be more of an imaginary wish list for the coming year, usually based on what we feel we’ve failed to accomplish THIS year.

For example, if you feel you should have “lost more weight” during the year, you’ll be inclined to set a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight.  This however doesn’t take into account all the reason why you failed to lose weight in the first place.  So what happens is that you set the goal, from January 1 – 5 you’re on a diet, you start to exercise more.  After about the first week, “LIFE” happens, you need a cheat day from your diet today, I’m a bit busy today to exercise.  Before you know it, it’s February and you’ve completely lost sight of your Goal.

The reality is that LIFE is always going to happen and if you’re unprepared for it, then you’ll just keep on making the same mistakes over and over again.  Instead, if you look back over the past 12 months and ask yourself the question, “What worked for you this year when you WERE eating right?”  You might see patterns that enabled you to eat right at those times.  So when you weren’t eating right, what was keeping you from doing that?  If LIFE was keeping you “too busy” to be able to exercise, dig down to the core reasons for that.  What were the “pressing” things that you had to attend to that kept you from working out?

Now you know in advance that all of those same struggles of LIFE are still going to be there for you in the New Year, you can pre-plan these things so that when LIFE happens you’ll already have a strategy in place to overcome these roadblocks and ensure that you don’t get off track with your Goals!

These kinds of tactics and strategies can be extremely useful when it comes to preventing any repeat of past bad habits, however what is even more effective is when you start to build on the successes of the past year.  So few people do this.  As we’ve discussed, most people are motivated by the frustration of past failures and totally ignore their past successes. 

But if you think back over the past year and ask yourself what were all the things that went RIGHT for you?  What were you doing when things worked out?  How did that make you FEEL?  As I always say, it’s what you are constantly FEELING that is going to keep showing up in your life. 

Most people never allow themselves to FEEL the FEELINGS of having things go right and the FEELINGS of winning for long enough for them to take hold in their subconscious and so they don’t show up in their reality.

If you just think back over all the wins that you’ve had for the past year and how that made you FEEL.  How would you like to feel that way all the time.  The more you focus on how you felt when you were successful, the more you will allow that FEELING to take root in your subconscious.  The more in alignment you are with those feelings and the more you will attract those into your reality. 

So this Christmas, New Year period, take stock of your year.  Do an inventory of all the wins and successes you’ve had and make a conscious decision as you move into 2016 to cultivate those FEELINGS into your daily routine and you will have more of those success show up in your daily reality.

My Top 6 Tips For Dealing With Explosive Growth

WOW !!!   All I can say is WOW what an awesome month October was for me.  People who follow my Blog regularly may have noticed that I haven’t been posting as much lately.  Well the reason is that I’ve actually been incredibly busy.  My Personal Coaching Business had been growing steadily throughout the year and things were going along nicely.  Then in October things just really took off.  I suddenly started having new clients coming from everywhere wanting to work with me and things have just been crazy busy ever since. 

So I’m incredibly grateful for all the extra people that have put their trust in me to help them become their better selves and I’m incredibly proud of all of these people for making these massive changes and bringing about the success that they so richly deserve.

But although I’ve been incredibly busy, I haven’t felt overwhelmed.  I credit this to being grounded and calm in what I do.  If you are grounded, centred and peaceful then you can usually handle anything that comes your way.  So even a massive increase in my Business Activity hasn’t fazed me.  So people ask how I’ve managed to remain so calm and in control with a sudden massive increase in activity.   

Well let me give you my Top 6 Tips for dealing with Explosive Growth.

1.  Sleep.

Getting enough Sleep is so important.  It allows you to recharge your batteries and gives you mental clarity.  I’ve already covered this in one of my earlier blogs, there’s a link to it underneath this point.

But simply put, if you want to get a good night’s sleep, you need to make sure that you get to bed before 11pm.  That’s when your body is programed to be asleep by.  If you’re awake after that time, your body assumes that the only reason you would be still awake is that there is some kind of emergency that needs to be dealt with and so you would need your full mental capacity.  So your body fires up to give you maximum alertness.  That’s why it’s so hard to get to sleep after 11pm.

For me personally, I used to be going to sleep at 1am routinely and I had endless trouble getting to sleep.  I started getting to bed by 11pm every night and I can’t believe the difference that it made to me.  I actually found that by getting to bed earlier, I needed less sleep, woke feeling more refreshed and had more energy throughout my day.

Read the full Blog here...

 Re-Charge

2.  Meditation.

Meditation is absolutely essential to anyone who wants to be successful in any aspect of life.  You see so many successful entrepreneurs who credit meditation as being the key to their success.  We’ve just discussed the importance of sleep, well did you know that 20 minutes of meditation is the equivalent of 4 hours of sleep.  So by meditating just 20 minutes per day, it’s as though you’re getting an extra 4 hours of sleep each day. 

But I just want to touch on something which is REEEEEEEEEEALLY UBER important though and that is not to feel discouraged when you start to meditate by thinking that it’s not working or that your meditation is being hijacked by thoughts.  This was a MASSIVE thing for me when I first started to meditate.  My mind is constantly going at a million miles per hour and when I started to meditate I would often think that it wasn’t working because I had all these thoughts that would float into my mind.  Obviously, the more you mediate the better you’ll be at this but what I’ve also found is that even if thoughts do come, you will STILL have periods when you are in a pure meditative state and any time that happens you WILL be getting the full benefit of those precious moments when you are meditating.  When I first started, I would meditate for 20 minutes at a time and I would have all these thoughts floating in, but even as a beginner for every 20 minutes that I was meditating there would be at least a couple of minutes in each session when it WAS working and I WAS in a PURE meditative state.  And even from the very beginning I’ve always found meditation to be beneficial and as I’ve made this a non-negotiable part of my every day (I now do it twice per day) I just get more and more benefit from it.

And if you haven’t already discovered, you can get a FREE Guided Meditation from my website !

www.dreamfulfilmentlab.com

3.  Frame My Day the Night Before.

Another key for me has been to frame each coming day the night before.  Now this shouldn’t be something that you spend too much time on, and it’s not something that should stress you out.  What I do personally is just quickly check my calendar on my phone just before I hop into bed to see what I have coming up the following day.  Because I diarise everything, I should always be prepared anyway for anything which is scheduled well in advance because I like to be organised.  But I just want to check to mentally get a picture of the day ahead.  Take note of any appointments that are coming up, anyone that I have a call scheduled with.  Then I spend just a couple of minutes when I get into bed just closing my eyes and mentally going through the coming day.  Making sure there’s not going to be any time conflicts.  If there’s anything I need to grab in the morning before I leave.  Basically making sure that I have a mental road map of how the following day will unfold so that there are no surprises.

4.  Being Organised.

This is a HUGE thing for me.  People who know me, know that I’m fanatical about being organised.  But really, being unorganised is just so inefficient.  Without being organised, you’re constantly chasing your tail. 

I personally find that being organised makes me more confident as well!  Being organised means that if I’m talking to someone for example, I know exactly where I can find any information that I may need.  If I need to send someone an email, I can confidently say yes I’m going to send that out to you now because I know where to find everything that I need and chances are that I already have some kind of template for doing all the things that I need.

One of my best friends when it comes to being organised is WorkFlowy.  It is an AMAZING tool that lets you organise all of your To Do Lists and be constantly on top of what you need to be doing.  You can find a link to it here…

www.workflowy.com 

5.  Trust.

When things really start to pick up and you start to get crazy busy, one of the most important things that you will need is TRUST.  What I mean by that is that you can’t be effective in what you need to do if you’re constantly worried about HOW you’re going to do everything.  You have to just TRUST that you will be able to do everything that needs to be done.  You have to TRUST that The Universe will give you all the answers that you need.

I’ve often said that that in my Coaching Business, my clients are far too important to me for ME to try and provide them with answers.  I TRUST that The Universe will always deliver to me the exact right things to say to them at the exact right moment.  I feel it’s not ME helping them, it’s The Universe which is working THROUGH me.  All I have to do is to come from a place of genuine caring for my Clients and The Universe will use me a vehicle to deliver exactly what my clients need.

And you know what, it ALWAYS works!!!

So when things start to get crazy, don’t get stressed, just TRUST that you are all that you need to be, you are the perfect person to be doing what you’re doing, this growth will NOT overwhelm you, The Universe will give you all the help that you need to accomplish all that you need to do and you WILL be able to deal with any growth that comes.

6.  Gratitude.

This kind of goes hand in hand with the last one, but when things get crazy, don’t get stressed.  Trust that you will be guided through the process of growth.  And also just as importantly, don’t resent the growth, don’t allow yourself to feel negative or overwhelmed by it.  You need to feel gratitude for what is happening.  You have to see this growth as being a great blessing. 

Life will never give you anything that you’re not able to handle.  If you’re dealing with any kind of growth it’s because The Universe knows that YOU are totally able to handle this.  The Universe likes speed and efficiency, it doesn’t do DESERVE.  You’ll never get anything gifted to you from The Universe because The Universe thinks you deserve it, or because you’ve worked hard, or because you’re a good person.  It doesn’t work that way.  The Universe only sees something as needing to be done and it just looks at the fastest, quickest, most efficient, most harmonious way of getting things done.  Just like a bolt of lightning finding the quickest way of getting to earth.  If you’re experiencing growth it’s because the Universe has identified YOU as being the best, fastest, most efficient vehicle to achieve its ends.

Be Grateful to The Universe for recognising YOU as being good enough to handle this growth.  Be grateful that The Universe has identified YOU as being the perfect vehicle to accomplish what it needs to accomplish THROUGH you!

If you’re experiencing growth, it means that you’re being given a special gift from The Universe, so embrace it and be thankful for it!

Mountain Climbers Syndrome

Today I want to talk about something that we can all fall victim to from time to time and that is what I refer to as being “Mountain Climbers Syndrome”.   What I mean by that is that we set out with a Goal in mind and we put our heads down and start working our brains out to achieve it.  Eventually after much blood sweat and tears, we look up to see how we’re going. 

Suddenly we realise that there is still so much work to be done!  We look at how much we still have to go and suddenly what we’ve already achieved seems so small in comparison, it can seem like we’ll never make it. 

The reason that I call it Mountain Climbers Syndrome is that it can be just like climbing a mountain when you’re just focused on climbing one foot in front of the other.  You reach half way up the mountain, you stop to take a look around and you see how far you still have to go and it just seems like you have sooooooooooooooo far to go that it can seem like you’ve made no progress at all.

But then in the next second you turn around and you see the view behind you and you can see how far you have ACTUALLY come.  That’s the beauty of climbing a mountain, at any moment you can see your progress.  And the view from even half way up is pretty incredible and breathtaking !

The problem is that in our everyday lives it’s not always so easy to just look around and notice how much we’ve already achieved.  It seems easier just to focus on how MUCH we still have to go but it takes work to actually go through the process of listing all of our achievements.  But just the same as the view from half way up a mountain is breathtaking, so too the effort of taking the time to focus on all of your achievements is well worth it.

When we really stop to just acknowledge what we HAVE achieved, it fills us with renewed confidence in our abilities and powers us with enthusiasm to drive us forward. 

So Here Are My 5 Top Tips To Stay Motivated to Reach Your Goal.

1.)  Think Back to When You First Set the Goal. 

Think back to the FEELING that you had when you first set the goal.  How did you feel to be setting that goal?  Were you excited?  The feeling or excitement that we have when we first set the Goal can be a great source of inspiration and power to move us forward if we do ever feel stuck.  So if you’re feeling a bit deflated, just think back and remember that feeling!

2.)  Make a List of ALL the Actions You’ve Taken Since You Set the Goal.

Think about all the things that you HAVE done since you set the goal.  It doesn’t matter if you feel you’re on track or off track.  At this point we’re just wanting to celebrate the actions that you HAVE taken.  Remind yourself that YOU have had the courage and initiative to make those changes.  If you’re the sort of person who can do that then you’re definitely the sort of person who is capable of doing the necessary work to see this thing through.

3.)  How Has Your Psychology Changed Since Setting the Goal?  

Have you made new distinctions in your thinking?  Do you now believe you’re capable of things that you didn’t know you were before?  Sometimes the mere act of setting a goal can expand our awareness because our sub-conscious selves are aware that we need to make these new distinctions in order to achieve our goal.  It’s often said that the most important thing about setting a goal is not in the achieving of the goal but in the growth it takes for you to become the type of person who is capable of achieving the goal.  If you’ve done anything at all towards your goal then chances are that you’ve already started to change.  You’re already closer to being the person who you need to be to achieve the goal then when you first started.  Take a moment to embrace, appreciate and celebrate the NEW YOU!

4.)  List All the Things That You Have Achieved So Far That You Wouldn’t Have If You Had Not Set the Goal.

It’s impossible to achieve any big or worthwhile goal without ticking off some smaller milestones along the way.  So if you’ve been working towards a major goal, then chances are that you must have already achieved some of the smaller milestones along the way.  Stop for a moment and make a list of all the little things that you HAVE achieved so far that you probably would NOT have achieved if you were not working towards this goal.  Now once you have this list, I want you to go through each one, one by one, and ask yourself what other benefits can come from this? 

For example, if you have  a goal to lose weight for example, then one of the things that you may have done is to incorporate some simple daily exercise like walking into your morning routine.  As a result that may have helped you to get closer to your goal of losing weight.  However, by making a habit of walking each morning, you may now have some other benefits like you’ve improved your health!  Studies have also found that being up early in the morning and exposing yourself to sunlight can help to wake up your body quicker and make you more alert and productive throughout your day!

If you now go through your list, item by item and for each one, ask yourself what other benefits can come from this?  What you will find is that not only are you closer to achieving your MAIN goal but you may already now have a whole list of other benefits which can help you in other areas of your life.  Can you now see how you really have come a long way and already achieved quite a lot, just as a result of setting your original goal!

5.)  Imagine That You Have Now ACHIEVED  Your Goal. 

Looking back, what would you say was the first major milestone in accomplishing the Goal?   What would you say is the most significant thing that you have done in order to achieve this goal?  Often it can be the first steps that we take that can be the most significant in hindsight in achieving our Goals.  But when we take the first step it can be a bit demoralising because it appears as though nothing is happening and we’re not making progress.  If we look at it in reverse though and imagine that you have already achieved your Goal, then often it can be a bit easier to see that the small steps that you’re ALREADY taken really HAVE been fairly significant for you after all.  If you can see how significant the small things that you’ve already done really are, then it’s easier to stay motivated throughout the process!

Go through this process to really re-invigorate your passion for your Goal moving forward and to help motivate to keep you on track.  Leave a comment below to let me know how this has helped you and what progress you’ve already made on your Goals!