Now that you’ve had a chance to reflect upon the year and to take stock of the successes big and small, we can reflect with more hope on new beginnings.  

Set Goals from a Place of Your Strengths

For those who may have been dreaming or working towards the same goal for a long time, or maybe have set goals only to feel disappointed, considering your own strength or resiliency in the waiting can spur us on to setting new goals.  We often announce that we want to make a change in our lives when we realize what we’ve been doing is no longer working.

This approach incorporates your level of confidence from the achievements you’ve made in the previous year and helps you to assess your level of motivation for the upcoming year.  

Reflecting On Your Motivation

When you are coming up with new goals consider these questions:

• What change would I like to see in my life?
• How important is this change to me?
• How ready do I feel that I am to make the change?
• How confident am I that I can make this change?

I invite you to answer the last 3 questions by rating your answers on a percentage scale from 1-100.  1% is low and 100% is high. Sometimes putting numbers next to these can help you to gauge your level of motivation towards making a change.  You may be surprised at the areas that you’re rating is closer to 1%, I encourage you to view the percentages not from a place of judgement, but as a place of awareness.  Consider what is it that is keeping you from rating yourself higher? Is there anything within yourself or your circumstances that would need to change?

I encourage you to consider the areas of life that you reviewed from the previous post Resolutions: Planning From Your Strengths.  

Pick Your Top 1-3 Dreams

Of those areas, pick your top 1-3 that are rated the highest in motivation.  Then you can start to answer these questions:

• What is my ultimate dream from this area?
• Does this seem like a short or long term dream?
• What do I need to do to prepare for this dream? (maybe it will take saving up money, connecting with the right people, obtaining materials, researching, etc)
• Write down the possible steps that you may need to take for this dream to come true

Final Question

Lastly, do I need help reaching this dream?  Who can I reach out to?

If you are struggling to answer any of these questions, or feel that you will need some help in reaching this dream please know that you are not alone.  Dreams often are not accomplished on our own, but with the support of those who either have gone before you, who are walking with you, or are cheering you on from behind.  I would love to be a part of this process of personal discovery and achievement. 

Written by therapist Pamela Larkin

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