It's just now December. So, you're not hearing a whole lot about New Year's resolutions yet. However, it's coming. As soon as Christmas lights start to come down--BAM--every blog, Instagram meme, promotional email, commercial, Facebook-targeted ad will be about building a better you.

As a coach, I am all about taking time and effort to improve oneself, but I prefer to leverage priorities and goals over resolutions to create personal and professional results. That way, when January comes, you don't have to renovate your life, you can simply use it as one of the times throughout the year you evaluate what's working, what's not working and make any necessary tweaks. 

So here are some ways to begin to make 2022 a great year:

🏆 Determine your key priorities and goals. I recommend scheduling a day, before the holidays, to work on this. Evaluate this year and plan for next year. As you're considering goals, make sure you are working with objectives that are attainable for you. They may cause you to stretch outside of your comfort zone, but they should still be reasonably obtainable. Some of your goals should be results-oriented goals. Others should be habit-focused goals. You should include personal, family and professional goals. Try to narrow it down to one key goal for each priority area of your life that would best help you move forward. Forget everything else, seriously. Talk through your goals with someone you trust who believes in your greater potential and has the freedom to be honest with you. Evaluate your goals according to their feedback. 

🪀 Assess areas or patterns that you think have historically kept you from reaching your goals. Have you attempted resolutions and failed in the past? Or maybe you didn't fail but your commitment waned. Can you think through that time and determine what the key factor or factors were that led to bailing on the resolution? Be honest with yourself. Chances are, it was something that is within your control. 

📌 Create a plan to achieve your goals and overcome the challenges that have held you back. Some simple tools I've used are: checklists, project management software (I recommend monday.com) and I will schedule time on my calendar dedicated to the goal. When someone asks, "Are you available to meet on Tuesday?" and I have time scheduled to work on an important project, my answer is "no." That's because I am in an important meeting with myself and I'm focused on important work that must be done. 

🤝 Ask others around you to hold you accountable. Feel free to give them as much or as little authority as you need to be successful. This is why I often hire coaches to help me accomplish highly important goals. (Remember, you probably shouldn't trust a coach without a coach!)

This plan will likely take more effort than what the average person puts into New Year's resolutions. Often, we like to just arbitrarily declare our resolutions without putting the thought and consideration into them that they deserve. But these are some ways to help ensure that your good-intentioned resolutions get turned into lasting impact on your 2022.

Interested in making sure you continue to grow?  We are too!  Schedule time with Bob to start your journey today!