A practical approach to change your life in the new year.
"New Year New Life"
Proverb.
New beginnings always have a special charm.
It is now more than a week since the New Year, but many of us will return to "getting serious" only today.
The conclusion of the Christmas holidays and the return to everyday life is a critical moment to test our good intentions for the new year.
With today's article I want to take the opportunity to suggest you a practical approach to make sure that the new year finally brings you a new life.
Goals: one, none or one hundred thousand?
In the past I told you about a curious principle of personal growth inspired by a 90s b-movie: Curly's Law.
One of the corollaries of Curly's Law is to set only 1 goal for each year.
Personally I have followed this principle for the last 3 years, obtaining, among other things, excellent results. Focusing on a single goal and, in general, doing one thing at a time, allows us to have greater focus and concentration.
However, there is a downside.
Our life is multifaceted: we have multiple interests, commitments and needs. Focusing exclusively on a single aspect risks bringing serious imbalances into our existence. If we dedicate ourselves body and soul to work, our relationships may be affected. If physical appearance is our top priority, we may neglect our education, and so on.
In short, focusing on one and only one goal involves risks, not to mention the frustration we would face if we did not reach that one.one goal to which we have dedicated all our energies for a whole year.
"They say it's true that every enthusiasm has the same amount of frustration."
Now - Jovanotti.
Um ... you understood: so Andre is better to have a hundred thousand goals, so, if it goes wrong, we can take at least one home ?!
If setting a single goal for the new year involves risks, having a hundred thousand is failure guarantee. Setting too many goals, perhaps too ambitious, triggers a very dangerous vicious circle:
- we set a hundred thousand goals;
- we hardly reach half of it;
- we demotivate ourselves;
- we set new goals, knowing deep down that history will likely repeat itself, thus triggering mechanisms of self-sabotage.
Therefore?! Squeeze, squeeze, the bottom line is that I don't have to set goals ?!
Recently, some American personal growth bloggers have launched the "fashion" of not setting goals. Their contention is that goals are an outdated, '90s para-guru stuff. They argue that setting goals means fact postpone our happiness, forgetting that the only moment we can truly live is the here and now.
I must admit that this thesis has its charm: living in the moment, freeing oneself from too tight chains of programs and objectives, being more spontaneous. All very nice.
But I like to choose which direction to take in my life, and setting goals remains, in my opinion, the most effective way to do it.
What the hell! Today you don't like a GetPersonalGrowth: one is little, no one you don't like, one hundred thousand is too many. What do we want to do here? Is this a blog with practical examples of personal growth or a meeting place for the chronic undecided ?!
Considering the results (positive and negative) obtained in the past years, for the new year I decided to adopt a new approach. An approach that integrates the best of the approaches tested in the past years, while mitigating the negative aspects.
The 5 pillars of change
As mentioned, one of the negative consequences of fixing only one goal per year was to generate imbalance in my life. While some areas of my life are going well, on the other hand, I still have a lot to work on some aspects.
The first step of my new approach therefore involves identifying the supporting pillars of our life, that is, those elements that make our existence complete and balanced. As for me I have identified 5:
- Mind.
- Body.
- Spirit.
- Relations.
- Finances.
In order not to fall into the error of fixing too many goals, for each of the pillars identified I have defined one and only one main objective. Not all 5 goals I have set myself have the same scope: there are more ambitious goals and much simpler goals.
What I wanted to do this year was to remember that life is not one dimensional and that happiness is often achieved through balance.
Consistent with this new approach, I have also reviewed the way I update my personal diary: every day I keep track of the small / big progress I make in each of the 5 pivotal areas of my life.
When things go well, this reminds me that I can still improve.
On the other hand, when things go wrong, this reminds me that problems are often relegated to a single area of ​​our life and are unlikely to be pervasivi e permanent.
Very interesting Andre, but I would like to remind you that here the reader is me! I find myself quite in your 5 pillars: wouldn't you have some practical advice to give me for each of these areas ?!
For each pillar its article
Despite having developed this approach between the end of last year and the beginning of the new year, reviewing the Blog Archive I realized that 90% of the articles I wrote fall into one of these 5 pillars.
Hoping to do what you like, I have chosen, for each of these 5 pillars, the most representative article of the Blog GetPersonalGrowth for me. I hope this can help you better set or recalibrate your new year goals.
- Mind> The mental domino.
- Body> An effective training program.
- Spirit> The secret of happiness according to Osho.
- Relationships> How to please others: 6 tips.
- Finances> Building a capital in 4 steps.
One more thing ...
Whether you decide to set one, none or a hundred thousand goals, to reach your goals in life you must necessarily defeat a very powerful enemy: procrastination.
Always putting off until tomorrow undermines your every chance of success, as well as your self-esteem. Since mid-January I have put up for sale the first in-depth guide of the Blog GetPersonalGrowth: Start! - The Practical Guide to defeat procrastination.
Carrying out this practical anti-postponement course was an important goal for the past year for me and I am sure it will be the tool through which realize your goals for the new year.
Have a good week.
