Achieve your 2023 goals with commitment and clarity

Why don’t people achieve their goals? And what can you do to avoid this?

Have you been so afraid of failing and here are some reasons some of the reasons why people fail to achieve their set goals:

• Fear or self-doubt
• A sense of overwhelm
• Lack of purpose
• Loss of motivation
• Too many distractions
• Lack of focus or lack of clarity of goals
• Taking on someone else's goal

Every New Year marks a new beginning and brings with it a surge of fresh energy. This ignites us to start planning a fresh set of business goals, health goals, life aspirations, and things we have been putting off for a while. As humans, we are goal-oriented, always striving to achieve something. Goals are essential to giving our lives meaning and purpose. Without them, we would wander through life aimlessly.

How can you do something different this year? 

Let’s take the cliché of the Gym membership, where people sign-up in January with much enthusiasm, to deal with the guilt of pounds gained over the holiday indulgence, only to lose interest by March. The cycle then repeats itself. This applies to other areas of our lives and businesses, where we give up on goals set in the early part of the year. 

When we join the Gym, we have taken the first step, the Action.  What propels the action is emerging from a need that was driving you to take the action. 

For example, the overindulgence over the holiday, seeing those extra pounds on the scale, is painful, and we are willing to do anything to push it away.  The heartache that we encounter of not being able to fit into our favourite pair of jeans, pushes us into taking action. 

The fact remains that action driven by the guilt of overindulgence, may not be sustainable.  As soon as there is a relief or distraction, there goes the commitment to visit the gym.  Some of us who invest in a Gym membership give up after the first few visits.  Those who stay on and sign up with a Trainer, tend to go further in accomplishing their health goals. 

Ways to Elevate your leadership in the year 2023!

Taking the first few steps are important.  Here are the three ways that help us to make our goals sustainable:  

1. Engagement: We usually begin with setting smart goals. Your goal for going to the gym - could be for losing x kgs or getting fit to look great.  Let’s take this further and start visualising how you would feel when you wear your favourite pair of jeans or the dress you love.  The stronger motivating factor for success would be what it will feel like, not just how we look after losing the x kgs.  In establishing an engagement with the feel-good factors around success for your goals, builds momentum. 

2. Commitment: With a vision of a successful goal, comes a level of commitment to believe it will be done.  This is the mantra that will keep you in an elevated attitude to persevere and be sustainable. Focusing on the whys and hows of achieving your goals, helps you to stay committed and move towards success everyday 

The questions that you can ask yourself:

Why should I achieve this goal?

What would make me feel good knowing I have achieved success?

What would inspire me to continue despite the challenges on the way?

What am I willing to commit to achieve this goal?

3. Execution: With clarity and commitment comes the execution strategies. Unless it becomes a part of who you are, we know new changes are not sustainable in the long run. Research has shown that doing a new task just 4-5 times creates new habits.  Crafting daily activities, and weekly tasks make for the small steps that will help keep momentum and accountability.  Schedule build as part of your lifestyle will help to manage distractions and make leaps of progress.

What goals would you like to achieve? What would being successful in 2023 feel like for you?  

Make 2023 the year where you achieve your goals with intention and achieve success in all of your endeavours.

Happy New Year!

#Elevatedleaders, #Elevatedleadership #ExecutiveCoach