By this time next year I’ll be perfect. I’ll have achieved my perfect weight and be 100% fit. I will have attained a perfect work/family balance. All my thoughts and actions will flow from absolutely pure motives. I will have absolutely no faults. In short, I’ll be an all round great guy.
Why do I get the feeling you don’t believe me?
Do any of us really think we’re going to achieve perfection in the coming year? I guess not.
The strange thing is that some of us act as if that’s the goal and nothing less will satisfy. We create New Year’s Resolutions that tend to fall apart within weeks and then beat ourselves up, considering ourselves as failures. We set the bar way too high and then end up crushed that we didn’t go the distance.
Our failure to achieve the goals and resolutions we set results in us becoming discouraged, before walking down the same path the following year, or giving up on setting goals completely.
I wonder if there’s another way to look at our goals.
If I want some New Year’s Resolutions for 2011 I could always adopt last year’s. After all, most of them are still in brand new condition. They haven’t been used at all. But I’m not too discouraged.
I set myself a goal to read a whole lot more. I didn’t read as much as I would have liked but I did read more than I had the previous year.
Even if I stayed on my bike for the next couple of days I can’t reach my goal to cycle 12 000 kilometres in 2010 but I have passed last year’s total and won’t miss the mark by too much.
I’ve battled with being overweight most of my life and in 2010 I failed to drop the kilograms I wanted but I am ending the year fitter than I started it.
I could go on but I think you get the idea. I created some goals and then set about achieving them. I’ve fallen short in many of those goals but I’m not completely discouraged. I made progress in many areas that I wouldn’t have if I didn’t have those goals. That doesn’t mean that I go into a new year with no intention of reaching my goals. What it does mean is that I know I’m not perfect but I am moving forward.
Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars. – Les Brown
Will you be making some New Year’s Resolutions for 2011? Can you look back on 2010 and see progress in some areas of your life?
I hope that you’ll set yourself some goals that will stretch and grow you and that you’ll be able to celebrate the wins along the journey even if you don’t quite make it to the destination.
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