Thursday 29 January 2015

Making Weekly Intentions Will Help You Achieve Your Goals

Last week we looked at the advantages of including a ‘Daily Practice’ into our routine to help us achieve our goals.  You can read that post here.  Today I’m talking about ‘Weekly Intentions’.

We used 'running a marathon' as our example for last week so this week we'll look at another type of goal.  I know so many people who wanted to 'learn something new' as part of their resolution list.  It’s an admirable goal!  Keeping our brain active has huge benefits for our mind, body and soul.

So where do we start?  Let’s ask ourselves those all important questions:

1.      Why am I doing this?

2.      When am I doing this?

3.      What do I need to do to achieve success?

Thursday 22 January 2015

How to Stay on Track with Your Goals by Using a Daily Practice.

The majority of our New Year Resolutions, goals and aspirations fail because of a number of reasons; a lack of planning, not being fully committed or setting ourselves unattainable challenges.

It’s like we purposefully set ourselves up for a fall.  We don’t have to operate in this way.  Setting a challenge that may test us can be liberating and life changing.  Writing my book, How I Changed My Life in a Year taught me that.

Yes, we all scribble down a list of changes we want to make each year, and yes, be the end of the third week many of us have abandoned them.  I heard on the news this morning that today is the day our weight loss ambitions are discarded and we attack the biscuit tin!  If we looked at that list for a moment, we might see the reason:

Tuesday 13 January 2015

What's Your Power Word of the Day?

Last week I talked about leaving behind the rigidity of goal setting to allow for the relaxed beauty of ‘flow setting’.  You can read that post here.

Today I want to introduce you to a new motivational past time that I stumbled upon whilst writing up last week’s post. 
 

It’s no secret that I adore journaling.  My home and office are full to the rafters with pretty notebooks, matching pens and folders.  ‘My name is Shelley and I am addicted to Stationery!’

So, as I spent a luxurious hour on Pinterest, my ‘super-stationery-senses’ were activated when I found a link to the seaweedkisses blog.  Michelle’s beautiful page is dedicated to her passion for journaling.  As well as sharing her tips, she invites us to take a sneak peek into the notebooks, journals and organisers from people all over the world.

Before I go on, I want to set the scene of just how excited I was to find this site.  First of all, let me ask you a question.  Who has watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)?  That’s the one with Sean Connery in it.

Tuesday 6 January 2015

No Need For Goal Setting - Try 'Flow' Setting Instead

Normality has returned to the Wilson household (well, as normal as you can get with three teenagers under one roof!)

We all shuffled back to school, college and work this week with as much enthusiasm as a wet mop.  I’m not surprised about the kids – that comes with the territory, but I’m a different story.  I love my job very much and yet I returned with a melancholy aura.
 
My evenings aren’t much better.  At the end of last year, I would finish work to do my household chores.  I’d feed the kids, clean the fish and then settle down in front of my laptop to bash out a chapter or two and tackle an article or blog post.
 
Instead, I find myself staring at the wall with a bewildered expression plastered to my face.  It’s not writers block.  I know this because my head is crammed full of story and blog post ideas that scream at me with every waking moment (thank goodness for post-it notes!). 
 
It finally hit me at 2am the other morning as I tossed and turned in bed and eventually turned the light on to empty my thoughts onto paper.  I’ve been so busy organising my blog content to help motivate my readers that I forgot all about setting my goals!
 
I feel like a balloon let loose in the sky and is floating aimlessly.  That perfect quote, ‘a dream without a plan is just a wish’ is on repeat in my brain.