Achieving your goals

The Christmas and new year period brings lots of thoughts about setting goals and making resolutions, but the build up to it starts in the shops in September and as the build-up grows, by the time the celebrations come it can often feel like a pressure valve going off.

There is no doubt that shops have a goal plan, as soon as Christmas is over, the Easter eggs come out and on the shelves, along with spring cleaning, decorating and gardening equipment, but maybe the retail industry misses out and they could use the 12 days of Christmas as a marketing tool.

On social networks and among friends and family, so many say that they are relieved Christmas is all over and some even take the decorations down on the 26th or 27th of December!!! Though these may well be people who had them up in November and all the presents bought and packed in September.

If you are blogging or running any other kind of business, plan your marketing through the year to maximise the holiday periods and other significant dates.

Where does all this relate to goals? It is about Christmas not being seen through to the end and this is so often what happens with goals and resolutions.

Goals can of course be set at any time, not just at new year, birthdays are an example of this. We often start out full of enthusiasm, thinking how great it will be to achieve the goal, but so often either we get fed up with the effort involved, or we never even get started. Then, one day we remember that we planned to do it and we start again, often at the next 12 days of Christmas or the next birthday!!!

How many times were your goals not reached because you did not work at them to see them through? Like not passing a course and getting a qualification because you did not study? do you start things off with great intentions but they come to nothing because of lack of action or sticking at it and determination?

When you start a goal, stop every now and then and look at your progress and make sure you are sticking at it, it may make all the difference ….

Valerie Hartland

New year positive affirmations

  limitless hope.



Many times throughout my life I have felt I needed to “hope for the best but expect the worst.” This year I choose hope. I shall tell myself I can do this and that I can create and bring about what I want in my life. Things happen, life happens, it’s what happens when you are busy doing other things and boy can it pass you by and we never know what may happen, but hope is a good companion on the journey …

I know that I can choose how I view my circumstances, I can choose to be negative or positive, and hope breeds hope, it is possible to grow more confident about being hopeful rather than more and more anxious being fearful.

Today, while the year is still so new I have chosen to be positive and hopeful that it will be a good one and things will work out well.

Questions for self-reflection ~

1. Is my hope spontaneous and comes naturally or do I have to force it?

2. How can I become more of a positive thinker?

3. What changes can I make to help me be more hopeful and positive?

Valerie Hartland

3 Essential Steps for New Year Resolutions!

... Forgotten them already?

Getting them back on track

I am not obsessed with making New Year Resolutions, but if you are still thinking you ought to do something to get this new year going, or you did make them and have dropped them already though it is only January 2nd, here are 3 things to help ~

However, any day is just as good as January 1st to make resolutions, New year resolutions do seem to so often have a built-in failure button.

It’s almost a joke with many people how they set resolutions every January 1st and by the 10th, if that they are forgotten and abandoned, but what kind of positive message does that send to your brain about your staying power? If you set a goal, telling yourself that it will not last and then you laugh when it doesn’t, then it’s hardly surprising when you do fail

This is the first thing that you have to get right when you make a resolution at any time ~ be sure that you mean it !!, and if you don’t then don’t bother because to do so will not help your mind set when you are determined but think you are bound to fail.

If you really do want to set an achievable goal, you need to define it, and this is the second step. Your goal has to be focused and planned, not just, being happy,’ or ‘having more money’ or ‘being thinner.’ You need to have a plan of how you are going to get this extra money and what is your target weight and what are you going to do to lose the extra, HOW are you going to make yourself happy? Very often goals fail because they are just too vague ….

The third step that must be right when goal setting is positive action. Too often goals are worded in the negative, i.e. what you will stop doing rather than what you will do, I will stop eating chocolate, I will stop smoking, I will stop letting things get to me so much …. I will stop eating chocolate may sound positive but a resolution more likely to be positive and succeed is I will eat more fruit and vegetables.

Your goal plan, no matter what day you make it needs to be action based, but on positive and not negative action. Rather than focusing on what you will stop doing, think about what you will take up, this is a positive mental shift in your mindset.

Following these three steps will help your goals to be more than just vague wishful thinking, and remember that even if the ones you set on January 1st have been abandoned already by today, you can set yourself goals on any day and make them achievable!!!

Valerie Hartland