At this time of year, many people’s minds turn towards making a fresh start and creating positive changes in the new year. While this is a laudable idea, all too many people end up frustrated when they look back on their year (or even the first quarter) to see that many, if not all, of their New Year’s Resolutions fell by the wayside. Here are a few ideas I recently shared with my coaching clients to help them experience greater success and fulfillment in 2009.

1) Don’t make resolutions!

At least not in the traditional way. Most people’s New Year resolutions look like an overwhelming laundry list of “to do’s” that would require herculean willpower (not to mention an extra 40 hour work week) to implement. The challenge, after the initial enthusiasm for doing a complete life and work overhaul subsides, is that the energy required to implement so many changes simultaneously simply cannot be sustained. Unfortunately, rather than just cutting back when they realize they bit off more than they could chew, most people give up all together and slowly (or sometimes quickly) slide back into their old habits.

So what does work?….
2) Express Gratitude:

I always start my New Year off by ending the old year with expressing and cataloguing all that I am grateful for from the past year. This appreciation of my successes and blessings is not only energizing, looking back on all the many things I am grateful for in the course of the past year helps me to see what experiences and achievements have been most meaningful and fulfilling for me. Very often the things I am most grateful for were not things that I had planned for or had to achieve. They were the simple joys of living such as being able to earn a living doing what I love, having great friends, being healthy, and having a loving family. This gratitude exercise will help you to get perspective on your true priorities and inform your intentions and theme for the year.

3) Identify Your Intentions:

Go through the different areas of your life and identify your overall intentions for the changes you would like to see by the end of the year. As you all have heard me say many times, make sure that your intentions are in alignment with your Four Passions. If you write down a change because you think you “should” or “have to” make a change in some area, it is far less likely that you will be able to sustain the energy to follow through than if it is something that is in alignment with who you truly are and want to be. A common example for many people might be losing weight. I avoid setting specific goals around losing weight because, for me, this falls into the “should” realm as I really don’t care that much about the weight itself. Instead, I set intentions around what I want to experience physically. Since I had a baby this year, something far more meaningful to me is to return to my old levels of energy (can you say sleep deprivation?) and physical ability. My intentions in this area are to get more sleep and to be able to do the Grouse Grind and join a Bootcamp – two activities I enjoyed pre-pregnancy and would love to do again. This year I wrote personal intentions in the physical area, the spiritual area, my relationship area, and my creative area. My business intentions were focused in the area of solidifying systems and expanding product/service outreach. To set your intentions ask: Which areas of my life and work would I like to see change in that would have the most positive impact on my life overall? Describe specifically how you would like things to look rather than making a to do list of how you are going to create that change.

4) Pick a Theme:

Now the above might not sound so different than the typical goal-setting method, but here’s where the real power is. Look back over all of your intentions to find an overall theme for the positive changes you want to see in your life and work this year. In my case, when I looked over all of my dreams and desires for 2009, the thread that I saw running through everything was “Rebuilding Foundations”. Having had a baby this year I realized that all of my old routines had been disrupted. I can’t/don’t eat, sleep, exercise, socialize, or work the way I used to. All of the rituals, routines and habits that I had in place before baby came along that I took for granted now need to be rethought in light of the wonderful new addition to our life. I need to rebuild my foundations. So while I do have specific goals and plans around exactly what I plan to do, be and have this year, if I think about all of them at once it could become very overwhelming. By being clear on my core theme for the year, I can keep this top of mind on a daily basis and use it to guide all of my actions and decisions. This takes far less energy, provides more flexibility, and allows me to flow with choices in the moment rather than trying to force myself to stick to some plan that I made in a moment of expecting myself to be a far superior human being than I can usually manage when the daily demands of life come calling. No matter how overwhelmed (or sleep deprived) I am, I can usually manage to hold one theme in my head. The easiest way to do this is to form your theme into a question. My question this year is “How can I rebuild the foundations for thriving in my life and work so that I can minimize energy required for the necessities and maximize energy for the things/people I love?” Being mindful of this question will lead to many different actions that I cannot even imagine right now – while still creating the results I desire. To me, that is much more exciting than chaining myself to a huge list of action items that may not flow with the natural unfolding of circumstances that occurs in all of our lives.

I wish all of you a 2009 filled with passion, prosperity, and fulfillment!

–Andrea Jacques

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