Goals for the New Year

Dreams of Destiny

In his book Awaken the Giant Within, Anthony Robbins suggests that ‘we all have a vision for the quality of life that we desire and deserve. Yet, for many of us, those dreams have become so shrouded in the frustrations and routines of daily life that we no longer even make an effort to accomplish them’. I’ve always believed that we should pursue are dreams and have made every effort to do so. However, sometimes one can take a fork in the road that leads us on an unexpected journey. A journey that we didn’t necessary plan, but happened as a result of a number of actions that have led to some unintended consequences, and we end up not quite living the life we hope hoped for. This story is about a new journey that I intend to take. It seems a little bit predictable in that I’ve chosen New Years day to start this journey; but today seems like as good a day as any. I consider myself to be an expert in self-help. I’ve read all the books, walked the fire-walk with Anthony Robbins had life coaching from a top business coach and have certainly applied some techniques on a specific plan. But where I’ve not been successful is taking action. I agree with Robbins ‘if you don’t have a plan for your life, then someone else does’. I have a long list of things that I know could improve the quality of my life but simply haven’t been acting upon them. This has led to me feeling a little out of control and at times helpless. Well today is a day of action. This blog is going to be the jump-start to my action. I intend to ‘go public’ and share my progress over the next twelve months. There will be some who think that I have chosen far too many areas to focus on. You could be right, however, I think that all these factors are interdependent and will contribute to my overall success. I’m hoping that giant goals will produce giant motivation. So enjoy the story, please feel free to add any comments of support. I’m not in this to make money and don’t claim to be an expert blogger or writer. Please remember you can stop reading at any pointJ

My Story

I am extremely grateful for a number of reasons. I’m sat here writing in the conservatory whilst watching my six-year-old boy run around in the snow blowing bubbles in the yard. Perhaps I should go and join him! I have an amazing family. I have a beautiful wife who has a great sense of humour and is extremely patient and caring. You’d have to be patient to live with me! We live in the UK and have small cottage on the edge of the countryside. We both work full-time and have very demanding jobs. Despite being relatively successful in my occupation the stress, long hours and responsibility have had a significant impact on me both physically and mentally. I’ve now realised that if I continue with this lifestyle I’ll miss my children growing up and both my health and relationship will suffer. For these reasons I’ve decided to change the way that I live. To cope with the demands of work I use alcohol to relax and have little patience due to being so tired. I no longer exercise and time with my family is limited and usually spent trying to cope with the day-to-day demands of living. Despite the financial security that this position offers the quality of life for our family has declined in personal terms. I’ve decided not to accept this any longer and make an immediate change to the way we live. The goals below outline some of the action that I’ll be taking. I’ll be using the guidance offered by many of the self-help books and blogs that I subscribe too. I intend to write about both the successes and challenges that I have. I hope that this blog will make interesting reading and might even inspire you to take action.

The Plan

Having already gone through a process of brain storming and identifying what makes my family and me happy I’ve identified some areas I need to improve. This is only the basic outline of each goal and I’ll include more detail of each at a later stage. So here goes…

1. Career Related Goals – My work is probably the number one thing in my life right now that is making me unhappy. I’ve already looked at ways at improving this but haven’t really made much progress. What makes this more difficult is that I’m good at my job and at times even enjoy it. But there is one aspect of my work that I’ve had some real success in his coaching other people. So the target here is to set up my own life coaching practice and to change my job to something that requires less travel and responsibility.

2. Health Related Goals – Over the last few years I’ve gone from being very fit to doing almost nothing. Four years ago I completed an ironman triathlon as personal challenge. It took me 14 hours but just getting round was the goal. I’ve picked a smaller event to aim for in the summer. Again, I’ll post more about this later.

3. Personal Development Goals – Keeping this blog updated is probably going to be a challenge, but I’m hoping to get a few followers to help me though. So please follow me and keep me posted if you have the time. I’m in the final stages of completing a master’s degree but have been having trouble completing the last few thousand words. The rewards both personally and professionally will be significant if I can complete this so it’s time to get my head down. This is something I’ve been working on for four years! Why I’ve hit the wall now I’m not sure but I’ll be looking at ways to overcome this very soon.

4. Contribution Goals – In reading a large number of books on personal development one thing that has concerned me is the importance related to self development. I do think that we have become a society of individuals, more concerned with our own progress rather than contributing to the community. I’m not really a religious person but I thought the church might be a good place to start. My wife and family attend church and perhaps this will contribute to our growth as a family.

5. Financial Goals – I’m very fortunate that my finances are reasonably healthy. I don’t have any significant debt but I also don’t have any significant saving. In order for my career plan to take shape will involve some cuts in our income. This is another area that will involve some attention and focus over the next few weeks.

6. Family Goals – I’ve not saved this until last because it’s of least importance. I’ve saved this until last because it’s probably my most important goal. I want to develop my relationship with both my wife and children. There are some very simple steps that I can take to achieve this and this is where my focus will begin.

I’ve only outlined these goals in a basic format for now. The specifics will come later. I intend to outline these in more detail later. Not all of these goals will be tackled at once but there will be some cross over. It’s simply not practical and would probably bore you to provide more details at the moment. What will be interesting is to see how many of these goals have been achieved by this time this year. I think this blog will give me more focus and hopefully some support. If you’ve got this far, then thanks for taking the time to read this introduction. I hope that you follow the story.

Happy New Year and live life with passion!

Steve