It's the Why that matters

Do you ever wonder why it is that some people achieve their goals, and others don't? Do you ever wonder why you find yourself back at the same place in December of each year saying "next year will be the year that I finally do xx?", and then somehow during the year the list you wrote became less and less important or seemed silly?

I have a confession to make and that is that I am in a very similar place in one aspect of my life that I was in 12 months ago despite my desire to change those circumstances. I certainly had a great 2008, however I am lagging in one of the spheres of my life. This "failure" has lead me to do a lot of soul searching, reading, watching inspiring videos over the past month looking for the answers. Naturally no answer jumped out at me, and I now realise that I need to go back and do all my goal setting again, however I have had 2 very important revelations in my month of searching. I would like to be able to tell you that I was clever enough to have realised these myself, but they came from an "American success manual" that I resorted to buying to get me past this block.

So it seems that I may have been missing a couple of small yet very important steps in the process. To put it very simply I had planned the "how" I was going to achieve this particular goal, even noting down the actions and time frames but I failed to really understand why I wanted it. As the "why" was not so strong every month I let actions and dates slip by as there was no compelling reason to do them, there was no internal driver or consequence attached to completing each task. Therefore I didn't end up where I wanted to be.

So not having a clearly defined "why" I wanted to achieve a goal made me really question whether or not it was something I wanted to have in my life. This question lead me to one of beliefs and the need to examine the things I say are important these days, and the actions that I do to support those beliefs. Am I walking the walk?

I am still contemplating my navel over a few of these areas, but the lesson here for me is that significant changes to lifestyle don't lie in your ability to map out a project plan. They rest with how you balance all the aspects of your life and your values.

Lisa