Now that you know what you want to achieve in 2018, be sure to create a meaningful and exciting why for the goal. The why provides underlying motivation to sustain you along the journey. Discover what it is that makes the resolution important, what will be the benefit of its achievement, what’s the underlying need that will be satisfied. What will be the impact of reaching this goal? This will also help you be specific about what you want to accomplish. Being specific helps you choose appropriate steps to get to your big pleasing goal.
In the high pressure world of healthcare, it may be hard to think about adding something else to the mix of your busy life. Perhaps resolutions and goal setting aren’t appealing, you’re too exhausted, disconnected from what matters to you and others, and don’t think what you do matters. These are all signs of burnout. When you connect to what matters, it helps you set the right goal and sustains you in order to attain the goal.
Martin Seligman, PhD, who is considered to be the father of positive psychology and is the author of Flourish, identified PERMA as 5 components of life necessary for individuals to flourish. Later H was added. These are:
- P – Positive emotions in the right balance
- E – Engagement, use and development of strengths
- R – Relationships, authentic energizing personal connections
- M – Meaning, connection to something bigger than ourselves
- A – Accomplishment, the belief and ability that the things we do matter
- H – Health, physical is fundamental; our physical health is basic to our well-being
When figuring out what makes the resolution or goal important, it can be helpful to look at the effect the achievement would have on each of the above aspects of your life. Writing down your goal and the reasons for it reinforces the importance and your commitment to achievement.
Here’s my example as it relates to well-being. Like many others, I have a goal to be more reliable with my exercise routine. What does reliable look like? 3 times a week following through on my intention. Here’s what comes up for me.
- Positive emotion – I feel better about myself and more confident when I am physically fit.
- Engagement – I enjoy yoga and Zumba and can develop my skills in both of these areas. I know that doing a circuit gym or treadmill do not sustain my interest.
- Relationships – I enjoy the people I meet at both Zumba and yoga, and more importantly, my relationships are better when I feel better about myself.
- Meaning – in and of itself exercise is not meaningful to me, however when it enables me to do more and be more effective meaning will emerge
- Accomplishment – it is very gratifying to be able to do the Zumba routines correctly and enjoy the music and movement, so to with being able to get into and maintain yoga poses which are challenging
- Health – exercise clearly contributes to health, physical and mental.
With this in mind, I have marked my calendar for exercise several times a week from now through mid-March. I figure that’s a good start.
Weekly, reading over the goal and the reasons for it is a practice which reinforces the commitment and allows me to tweak what I need to do. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
What do you want to accomplish in 2018?
For more ideas to achieve well-being and experience more of what’s important to you, contact me.
Dina
Improving well-being for professionals through coaching.
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