Tag Archives: goals

More on Intentions

I was talking to my banker. He shared that he took a class on intentions and learned some interesting statistics. One that 75% of people make the SAME resolution for ten years without achieving it (I haven’t found this written so am not able to cite it). I found a few more here, that only 8% were successful in achieving their goal, younger people in their 20s tend to follow through more than people over 50, and that 6 months after a resolution only 46% are still going strong. Another thing I have heard many times is that “people who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions.” I have also heard that writing it down and telling someone is even more powerful.

I want you to be in that percentage of people who attain their goals. And I want you to set yourself up for success. A couple of things:

ID-100316601. Limit your goals to 3. The more you have the more unfocused you can be. Focus and succeed, you can always add more later.

2. Write them down and tell someone who you will be accountable to. Share with someone who is supportive (vs critical or doesn’t believe that you will accomplish this or anything else in  life).

3. Take a small step toward it every day. I talked about this in Intentions. A tiny step that is easy to do.

4. Don’t beat yourself up if you step away from your goal. Read more here. Recommit and move on. You can always step back on the path.

Set yourself up for success. Homework, do the above steps.

Photo curtesy of scottchan at freedigitalphotos.net

Doing vs Being

A continuation of Intentions or perhaps on a different or deeper level. 37H

I have been thinking about my own intentions as the new year approaches (I am writing this on the 30th). In the past I have mostly thought of doing intentions. Things I want to accomplish. When I looked back over the Intentions blog, only one was a being, 9 of the 10 were doings.

Let me clarify the distinction between doing and being before I continue. According to the Google dictionary, doing is engaging in an activity. Some of the synonyms I found were effort, work, exertion, application. Being, on the other hand, is the existence, the nature or essence of a person. Synonyms for being are life form, soul, living soul, human.

I am exploring my intentions with the lens of Being. Who do I want to be? Who do I want to become? What do I want to step into that may feel scary to me right now? And as I write this, I notice more energy and excitement then thinking about what I want to do. I am noticing the doing seems “out there,” it may happen, it may not. Whether based on money to do it (Hawaii trip) or seeing a set number of clients (some of which is out of my control). When I think of who I want to become, I notice an opening, spaciousness. There are an infinite amount of possibilities. And I have control over this intention.

Tying this back to last weeks Intention post, when you are pondering these questions, be specific. For example: I want to be a better friend. That is a great start and what are specific behaviors that create that? I want to talk to a particular friend each week, I want to set aside some time to email/call/text to stay connected with friends each week/day/month. Then you can actually make steps toward your intention. Having a goal, having something you are working toward that you can actually say, “yes I did this” or “no I didn’t.” And then recommit to your intention, leaving the blame out.

Homework if you dare to step in, think about the following questions: Who do you want to be? Who do you want to become? What is an attribute that you admire in someone else that you can’t even imagine yourself possessing? Ponder these then come up with specific behaviors or steps toward your intention. Have fun and Happy New Year!

I added a tree because I think it is such a representation of being. The acorn has the potential to be an oak tree. It just is and will be if given the right environment to grow. Same with you. You have the potential, give yourself the right environment (setting intentions, creating goals, getting support) in order to grow into that which you are. Embrace it. The tree doesn’t need to effort, if just grows.