Jan 08 2017
As a champion of change and personal development, I love the New Year. As the calendar turns, I am filled with excitement of all the new things I want to accomplish and some of the things I am ready to let go of. I keep a list. This is very unlike me. I am not a list person, but when it comes to my dreams and goals I definitely am. I have a list of goals for every year since I can remember, what I accomplished in 2016 and what I will accomplish in 2017. I am fortunate that many of the dreams that I have had for my life have come true. Really big things do come true, but lots of the smaller things, my monthly and weekly goals do not.
This year I noticed a pattern. Goals that connect to my weaknesses have a way of not being accomplished. I am weak in the areas of organization and follow through. I have a habit of starting many, many things and letting most of them fall to the wayside. I also have a habit of forgetting appointments. This is mostly because I get inordinately involved in whatever I am doing and lose track of time and even my surroundings. My hyper focus has made it possible for me to keep writing through multiple alarms going off in the house resulting in masses of smoke coming from the kitchen. It was difficult for me to explain to my husband that I didn’t notice the the smoke alarm never mind the smoke. One of my strategies for avoiding what I am bad at is to assign it to someone else. This is actually a good strategy for a lot of things, like filling out forms, following up on appointments, and scheduling clients. I can give these tasks to my assistant who loves the details and is extraordinary with them. However you can’t download everything in life and for the things that I am still struggling with but I simply need to do, I am going to hire a coach for. I am pretty good at figuring out my life purpose, my big goals for the year, the values I most want to demonstrate in my life. I help lots of other people in these areas of life. I however can’t figure out a way of organizing the files in my office to save my life, I can’t find pretty much anything and my computer organization system leaves much to be desired.
So my message to you is focus the majority of your energy on things that you are good at. This will make you happy and lead to feelings of fulfillment and purpose. However for the areas that you simply can’t excel on your own, ask for help. Whether it is a friend or a business or life coach, engaging someone else to help you at things you are not good at will be radically more efficient and far more pleasurable. For example, I have a friend come into my home once a year to help me purge, with her help we can get through the entire house in two days, a task that may well take two weeks should I attempt it on my own. When you write your goals for 2017, by all means be bold and ambitious in the areas of your passions and strength. For areas you know you are weak, create goals, but engage the support of an expert or support person to increase your chances of success.