Easter is another one of those times when we pause. We’ve reached our first quarter in this year, and most of us will have taken a step back and assessed how our lives have changed since the start of the new year, how far we’ve come, our achievements, our successes, what we haven’t managed to do, where we might feel we have let ourselves down, maybe failed (again!).
We look back at the start of the year and the goals we set ourselves, we then look at where we are now, possibly, probably to be honest, we are not where we said we would be.
Now, that might be in business, we haven’t got as many new clients as we hoped, not made as much money, not launched that new project, or it might be to do with our physicality, we might not have lost the weight we said we would, we might not have increased our fitness as much as we had hoped, we may well have stopped going to the gym by now, stopped the running etc.
So, ask yourself – how does that make you feel?
Good?
I doubt it, you’re probably feeling pretty let down by yourself, cross even, disempowered, unmotivated, lost? It makes us feel we are not good enough, brings up all sorts of self -worth issues, basically it puts us in our ‘threat’ mode and we all know that triggers stress, so often our physical symptoms increase, back ache, headaches, digestion problems, sleep issues, your resistance to virus goes down……and emotional issues creep in too.
Have you ever noticed how when you are feeling ‘ill’, ‘under the weather’, just downright crappy, that our self care goes out of the window? We start to eat emotionally, things that give us a quick fix (but do long term damage), we exercises less, we procrastinate more, we overthink everything! Just when our self care needs to be a priority – it goes out of the window!
This is one of my big problems with goal setting – we set ourselves unachievable goals, they’re unachievable for many reasons, but the big one is that you haven’t managed to achieve it before, yet you haven’t changed anything at all, so why would you (your unconscious mind) think that you could achieve it this time??? You won’t.
It’s nonsense really when we think about it.
When I’m setting my goals, or intentions as I like to call them, I make them achievable. I break them down into realistic things, that yes, make me go outside my comfort zone and stretch me, but that are ACHIEVABLE – the message I want to keep sending to myself is that I succeed, I do what I say I’m going to do, I start taking small steps forwards to the things I want to happen, if something didn’t work last time, then I try a different approach – this part is crucial. The big question I ask myself is:
How is that working for you???
If the answer is it isn’t …….then I change something 🙂
Of course, I don’t get it right all the time, your whole life is a journey of growing and learning, but when I’m struggling with things, I go to someone for help and guidance, a gentle nudge is often all it takes these days. For me, life is all about feeling good in any particular moment, not turning it into a fight.
Sounds simple but so many of us keep doing the same things again and again, even when we know they don’t work for us.
The second part to this email is to make you think and recognise all the “Internal” stuff you have achieved.
The external might not be as good as you hoped, but what’s been going on internally?? How have you grown as a person since January?
What is changing inside you that will allow you to change things externally? What small steps forward have you taken to do this? Are you calmer, less stressed, happier, clearer about who you are, what you want, where you’re going? Do you know YOURSELF better, has your awareness about YOU increased?
We place a lot of emphasis on the External but really the power comes from the Internal – if you’ve managed to make changes here, then you should be high fiving yourself, get the Internal right and the External will follow.
So, when looking back over this first quarter, remember to value the Internal improvements as much as the External.
If you haven’t made any changes, any growth or have absolutely no idea how – then connect with me and I can help guide you towards the place you want to be 🙂