How to make 2017 your best year yet – part II What’s holding you back?

About 3 weeks ago I wrote about how to set goals and take action to achieve them using the SMART approach. If you haven’t read that article yet, catch up here. Today, the focus is on how to find and overcome limiting beliefs that lead to self-sabotage or procrastination. Have you taken action in the last few weeks? What have you done to work on your goals? Or have you simply not had time or forgot about it? Keeping busy and making other things and people more important can be a form of procrastination. If we have a clear goal, a step-by-step action plan and enough motivation to go for what we want, it should be easy to achieve our goals. Just get started, make daily improvements or contributions and over time, your goals will be realised. Simple, isn’t it? Then why do so many people never reach their goals?

Born to do more

There are surely a variety of reasons (or excuses) but in my experience there is often an emotional element that holds people back, more specifically an emotion caused by certain thoughts or beliefs. For example, ask yourself: Do I really believe I can achieve this goal? If the answer is anything else than an immediate enthusiastic yes, there might be a bit of doubt that’s holding you back. Doubt leads to fear of failure and when fear takes over people tend to procrastinate or self-sabotage so that it eventually feels safer to not even try. Or perhaps you do believe in your goal but are worried about what other people may say if you reached that goal? Could there be jealousy, disapproval or even pressure from others? Or maybe your goal involves becoming successful and standing out which can cause anxiety and doesn’t feel safe, so again fear interferes (on a subconscious level) and before you know it, you’ve only half-heartedly tried before coming to the conclusion that it won’t or didn’t work.

Manifest wisely

Two great ways to overcome these limiting thoughts and feelings are tackling them with EFT tapping and/or Hypnotherapy. In fact, both work wonderfully together. With EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) we can release doubts, anxiety and fear. These act as blocks in the human energy system but can be literally tapped away by applying EFT. Once these energy blocks are gone you will be clear and motivated and a massive step further on the way to reaching your goal. If you then follow up with Hypnotherapy, which is like a guided visualisation, where you vividly imagine having achieved your goal and how wonderful that will feel, you set your whole self (conscious and subconscious) up for success. You sort of become unstoppable. Right, so let’s see what’s holding you back. Take a piece of paper and a pen and answer the following questions. If possible rate each feeling that comes up on a scale from 1-10 (one being low and 10 being very high) and give any thoughts or beliefs a percentage between 1-100% in terms of how true it feels.

1. Write down your goal. Read it out loud and then pause and see how your body reacts. Do you feel enthusiasm or anxiety? Does it cause tension? Where is it in your body? Give it a number.

2. Do you believe you can achieve this goal? Give it a percentage! For example, I’m 70% sure I can reach this goal. If it’s anything less than 100% start exploring what’s holding you back. In the above example: what do the 30% stand for? Tune in and write it down. Is it a belief or a feeling? Name it and then rate it.

3. How would other people (friends & family) react if you  achieved this goal? Be specific and write down what you think the most important people in your life would say, and more importantly how that makes you FEEL!

In my next post, I’ll write about how to use EFT tapping to tackle those limiting thoughts and feelings. Make sure you have your list of thoughts and emotions and their numbers ready. Or if you want to start right away, feel free to contact me and book an appointment. I offer 1-2-1 EFT & Hypnotherapy sessions in Brighton & Hove, East Sussex or via Skype worldwide.

Remember to enjoy every moment, smile more and be grateful for what you have already achieved.

Love and light

Sandy

Please leave a comment and let me know if this post has been helpful. Thank you.

How to make 2017 your best year yet! 5 steps

It is January, time to set new goals and make changes. Here are a few tips and ideas how to go about this and how to make it happen!
1. A few useful questions: What would you like to achieve this year? What would need to happen to make 2017 your best year so far? Who/where would you like to be in 12 months’ time?
2. Become clear: Just for a moment travel into the future, imagine it’s December 2017 and you’ve lived your best year so far. What does that look like? And more importantly, what does that feel like? What achievements would make you really happy and proud in December 2017? Become clear on the goals that would have the greatest impact. Just choose between one and three. Close your eyes and do this right now! Take a few minutes to daydream….. Seriously, stop reading! Do this right now!

3. Great! Now write down minimum one and maximum three of the most significant goals. If you find it hard to choose, rate each on a scale from 1-10 in terms of impact on your life or happiness and use the one with the highest numbers. Again, please do this now. This is important to write them down. Go ahead, I’ll wait….

4. Well done! Now, apply the (below) SMART checker to become crystal clear on your goal(s). Take a moment to do this. How much do you want to achieve this goal? Hopefully enough to take a few minutes out of your busy day to really work on those goal. A goal without a plan is just a wish!

smart-goals

Make sure you goals are specific rather than general. For example: ‘I will exercise for minimum 30 minutes twice a week.’ is better than ‘I want to exercise more’ (more can’t be measured). M stands for measurable, so you need a specific number such as number of books you want to read, the exact weight you want to achieve or the duration of the daily meditation you’d like to do. The next letter stands for attainable or achievable, so your goal has to be something that you believe is realistic and possible to achieve within a certain time-frame. R refers to relevant which means that it has to be your own goal, relevant to you and your dream, rather than something somebody else wants you to do. Only if you really want to achieve that goal you can get the necessary motivation to take action. Finally, T stands for time bound. You need a deadline or final date by which this goal can be realistically achieved. That’s the only way to kick into action as without that you might be prone to procrastination or even forgetting that. The deadline is your commitment to achieve that goal by that time.

5. Winston Churchill said: ‘Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.’ So, with an end date in mind you can then start creating an action plan, a step-by-step approach to achieving this goal. Start by breaking it down into smaller steps, then attach a deadline to each of them. Ideally write a schedule or create a timeline and put it up somewhere visible as a reminder. Take small daily steps toward achieving your goal(s).

Best of luck. Feel free to comment on this post or share it.

Happy 2017!

Love and light,

Sandy

happynewyear