Now that 2013 is upon us it is time to put those goals and resolutions to the test.

You’ve decided what you want; now how do you begin to tackle the task?

Daunting a bit isn’t it?

You could:

A)   Decide it’s too big of a goal and procrastinate before you even get started.

Or

B)    Decide it’s going to happen and you won’t waste another year wishing for something you are not taking any action on.

Just a friendly reminder:

We miss 100% of the shots we do not take.

Ready? Ok here’s how to get what you want!

1) You will only accomplish goals you ACTUALLY want to accomplish. This may sound obvious but don’t set the goal of abstaining from sugar if you love sweets way too much. Instead set a goal like only eating natural sweet foods like dates, fruit and natural sweeteners like honey or agave nectar instead of eating any white sugar or artificial sugar or foods.

2) Plan it out. Think really long and hard what you actually need to do to accomplish this goal. If you don’t know – find out!

3) Visualize it. Studies show that athletes who visualized their plays when undergoing brain scans use the same parts of their brain visualizing their moves as they do actually performing them. What does this mean? Practice makes perfect and if you can only practice in your head, it will be like you have already done it to your brain, your muscles, your nervous system and your intuition. This will make it easier for you to actually accomplish your goal because it will be as if you have done this before!

4) Start small. Break your goal into small steps that you can easily accomplish like making one phone call today or substituting one snack with fruit.

5) Start NOW. There is no time like the present, and if you wait any longer it gets even easier to keep putting it off.

6) Remember “progress not perfection”.  I remember my friend Arielle Fierman from Bewellwitharielle.com gave me this amazing piece of advice when I first started this Illustration and consulting business. She told me to make business cards for this new company really early on. Not knowing exactly what I was going to specialize in, I had no idea what to put on the cards.  She told me “progress, not perfection” to just do it and I can always change them later.  This was a huge hurdle for me that I was able to over come with this brand new mantra thanks to Arielle. If she had not told me that, it would have delayed my progress significantly – me being the perfectionist that I am – and that can become really debilitating to a new project or goal.  So start now and make progress, not perfection your goal. The more progress you make, the closer to perfection each time!

7) Set milestones. Milestones are stages into which a program or project is divided. They break the project or goal up in to bite size chunks so that it is easier to accomplish these smaller steps then wrap your mind around accomplishing a big, daunting and scary task.

8) Check in with your progress.  Keep going back to your milestone list and see how you are doing. Hold yourself accountable.

9) Celebrate each milestone. Each small accomplishment should be relished and celebrated. This will keep you going for the long haul.

10) Don’t self sabotage. Sometimes when we are so close to accomplishing a goal we tend to psychologically freak ourselves out thinking we don’t deserve the goal, feeling sad that the project is coming to an end, feeling like we aren’t ready for it to happen or not knowing what comes next. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.  You fully deserve to reach your goals and you need to trust that everything will work itself out. You will be ready for what lies ahead and you can break through that “glass ceiling” of your previous accomplishments.

You can do it, so GO for it!

Hope that inspires you!

Xoxo

Emily