How to ensure that you keep the resolutions you make
With tomorrow being New Years Day many will be making resolutions and setting goals for themselves. I was thinking about why we set goals for ourselves and decided that really it is about finding ways for us to grow. Growth is one of those spiritual needs that each of us must fill to feel fulfilled.
For us to set a goal that we have any chance of reaching, the goal must also be a way to meet one or more of our emotional needs, either short term or long term. Those emotional needs that we all have are a need for certainty in our life, variety in our life, significance or love/connection. If I set a goal of losing weight we might ask ourselves – what need am I filling if I do lose weight? Am I filling the need of certainty (certain of what?) or maybe it is significance or greater love or connection?
Then what is it that I set a high value on in my life that losing weight will give me certainty that I am living that value? Is it showing love for my family, my health, my children or receiving love/connection? Without filling a value and meeting at least two of our needs it is likely that our New Years Resolution will not be kept, even forgotten with a few days or weeks. But when 2 or more of our needs are being met, it is far more likely that our goal or resolution will be followed through on to it’s completion.
All goals must also be SMART. Next a look at creating SMART goals.
Life Skills – Goal Setting – The Definition
Each month we will discuss a life skill with all of our students. This month the word is Goal Setting. This word will be defined in the following ways for our students.
Young students: Goal-setting means: “I made a plan to achieve my goal!”
Older students: Goal-setting means: “Deciding what you’d like to achieve and making plans to achieve it.”
Each age group has a worksheet that parents can use to continue the discussion at home with their children, and one for adults to allow them to think more deeply about the skill and how it applies to them. Would you like to receive the worksheet? Stop by our studio at 133 Gibralter Avenue in Annapolis, MD and tell us the age of your child. We will give you a worksheet and invite you to watch Mr. Joe discuss the word with the students in class. You can also follow our discussions here on this website.
If you would like to become a member of Balanced Life Skills, come TRY CLASSES FOR FREE. We are not your typical martial arts school, in fact we are an education center, working with our students on physical skills along with empowering families with compassion, awareness and respect. We believe in every child and build their self – confidence. Balanced Life Skills takes part in community service and encourages each student to do the same.
Come in and talk to the parents that are here and watch the class for the age group you are interested in. Learn about the Balanced Life Skills Way.
Success is a journey; Have patience with yourself!
In the words of Bruce Lee: “Remember, success is a journey, not a destination. Have faith in your ability. You will do just fine.”
Having faith in your ability is the same as self esteem. Having faith in your ability will also allow you to have patience with yourself, as you know you will reach your goal, even if it is not at the time that you wished for. When the destination becomes more important than the journey, stress levels increase and our happiness decreases. In fact even when we meet our destination our happiness for reaching the goal is very short lived.
This awareness helps us to define success in another way – other than reaching a destination. Success is knowing that we have done our best. Success is know that we have put forth the effort required to be all we are capable of becoming. There is no time limit on giving our best effort.
Success is a journey into our own peace of mind; a faith in our own abilities – not compared to others, but rather to our own efforts. Having this frame of mind will bring us happiness with ourselves and our relationships.
We will do just fine.
Patience With Ourselves Will Lower Our Stress Levels
The discussion of patience this month cannot ignore working on our ability to be patient with ourselves. In a world that we have so many things available to us instantly, that waiting for our computer to load a page is intolerable if it takes more than a second or two, we have come to believe that our goals and relationships must be reached now without waiting. Even with ourselves we can become impatient if we do not get what we want right away.
The practice of being patient with ourselves allows us to “not be perfect”, to accept our mistakes without beating ourselves up. It helps us to set goals for our life and then work at achieving them, while recognizing that most goals will not be reached without perseverance. When we are not patient with ourselves it becomes very stressful and this stress leads us to internalizing the bad feelings, lowering our self-esteem, and many times we may begin to start playing the ‘blame game’. All of this impatience, stress, and lowered self esteem can lead to either internal or external expression of anger, resulting in harming our relationships.
Teaching our children the value of not beating ourselves up when we “fail” and not over celebrating ourselves with we “succeed” – will allow us and them to grow, reach set goals and like ourselves for who we are, which will build self esteem. Are you impatient with yourself at times? How does impatience happen? How does it feel when we are stressed out by our impatience?
I love getting notes like this one!
One of our students is moving out of town. He gave me this note. We were happy to have him as a student and even happier that he knows how to show respect and citizenship. Best to you Max!
