Towards the end of each year, and the beginning of every new year very motivated and excited we think of all these different resolutions…….only to realize couple of months down the line that we have already completely forgotten about them! I am not a resolution person, but I do believe in the importance of setting goals. I am not ever sure if there is a difference between the two, but somehow I personally believe more in goals…..and here are a few reasons for that:

• goals make you focus on what you truly want in life – goals help you determine what is important to you in life, which in turn help you prioritize your tasks each day accordingly
• goals motivate you to achieve what you want – once you have written a goal down it is like a promise to yourself and you get motivated not only to achieve it, but also about the whole process and journey
• goals help you believe in yourself and your ability even when others don’t necessarily do – when I have a goal, I visualize the end result on a daily basis…….which makes me believe that I can achieve whatever I set my mind to
• goals help you grow and develop further – very often in order to achieve a new goal, we have to push our self out of our comfort zone. A lot of times, this might be scary, but the truth is that this is exactly where the magic happens, this is when we push our limits, learn new things about our self and in general
• goals help you visualize your success – when you have a goal, it pushes you to visualize or imagine the end result……and this is a powerful feeling
• goals help you be more structured – once you have a goal that you want to achieve, you then set a plan and sometimes also a deadline by when you want to achieve this goal. This helps you be more structured in your everyday life, and focus on what truly matters to you and prioritize accordingly
• goals help you push yourself out of your comfort zone
• goals help you keep a positive mindset – although there might be difficult moments, or moments of frustration, overall having goals will help us keep a positive mindset…..which is extremely important for your overall wellbeing

For some goals it makes sense to set a deadline, and for some goals it doesn’t. What I mean by this is that if you have the goal of running a certain distance for certain time, or losing weight setting a (realistic) deadline will make sense. On other hand if you have goals that are dealing with your spiritual development, I personally don’t think that it makes sense to set a deadline…..simply because this is a life long journey that we never stop learning and developing.

I personally believe that for setting realistic goals, it is important to reflect on the year or month before. To see how far you have come, and simply to understand why is it important for you to achieve this particular goal. Reflection gives you a clearer picture of where you currently are, and what is really important to you. I also believe that sometimes through reflection, an idea or desire will come up that you were necessarily aware of.

Whichever way you go about setting goals and reflecting on the past year or month, make sure that you take your time and enjoy the journey. Most importantly make sure that you revisit your goals on a regular basis, this will make sure that you stay focused and motivated.

Stay healthy,

Anna

Photo source: © Cécile Gall / cecile-gall-photography.com