Countless people set goals for themselves at the beginning of the year. However, achieving these goals is often a different story. It is important to regularly re-assess your goals to ensure you are on track for success. This week, Health Coach, Cheri Timmons, shares her method for re-examining your personal goals using a 4-Step Strategy to assess your growth and explore resistance.
At the start of 2020, you likely set goals for the new year. As many as 50% of Americans create resolutions for the new year, however as few as 8% achieve success.
Why the low success rate? Without effective strategies, aligned internal motivation and fundamental support, goal-setters can unknowingly set themselves up for disappointment.
One essential step in goal-setting and achievement is to regularly re-examine your goals throughout the year. This on-going analysis allows you to:
Assess your growth
Explore challenges and resistance
Tune into insights about your experience
Course-correct when needed
Re-engage support
Get clear about where you are headed next
I always encourage my health coaching clients to use 3-month increments for their goal re-examination.
Why 3 months?
Three months is long enough to have made meaningful progress and experience the benefits of your work – AND – it is short enough to instill a sense of urgency to do the work.
During 3-Month Check-Ins, the following 4-Step Strategy will help you assess the progress you have made, examine resistance and roadblocks and pinpoint next steps for continued growth.
Step #1: Examine what is going well
Name one goal you have been working on
What is going well with this goal?
What are you noticing?
Describe your best experience with this goal so far
What has made that experience possible?
Step #2: Explore consistencies, challenges and resistance
What consistencies have you created?
What challenges or roadblocks have you faced along the way?
How have you course-corrected to circumvent these roadblocks?
Who is supporting you along the way?
Give a name to any feelings of resistance (ex: “doubt”, “worthiness”, “guilt”)
Step #3: Pinpoint what will move you forward
What are you curious about?
What do you really want now?
Is there ambivalence or resistance? Name it now.
Which personal strengths or core values can you leverage?
Step #4: Name your actions
What actions will move you towards what you want?
Why is this important to you?
What will be the benefits of accomplishing this goal?
How will it make you feel?
Repeat these 4-Steps with each goal you are working on.
When you engage this strategy for re-examining your goals every three months (or even more often), you will stay attuned to the changes that are happening along the way and fine-tune your focus more readily.
Keep steering awareness to these nuances of your goal work and you will continue to deepen your understanding of where you are growing and how to learn from any resistance that arises.
If thinking about goals in this way is new for you, I am available to help you. Just send me an email and we can get you going: cheri@chericoaching.com
Cheri Timmons is a Greensboro Downtown Parks program partner. The work she does with us is critical to providing FREE wellness programming to our park community. As we make our way through these unprecedented times, consider how you might support local Greensboro non-profits like us, as well as local businesses, artists, entrepreneurs like Cheri, makers, and more. We'll continue to bring you free programming through our digital platforms and look forward to having you join us and Cheri back in the parks soon!