OntrackTips & Advice

If you have a question or need advice, we may be able to help. Browse our helpful tips and advice, or you can use our form to submit your own for posting in this section.

Help! I set a lot of goals — New Year’s, birthdays, sometimes monthly. I find I achieve little and forget that I even set some of them. I seem to have the same things on my lists, year after year. Is this normal?

Advice: Beginning with childhood, we learn how to succeed, and we learn how to fail, and these are imprinted in our minds, even if unconscious. Sadly, in our society, we tend to remember failures and forget successes (because we’re quickly on to the next thing!) Take time to recognize your accomplishments, even if they aren’t on the “list” before you criticize yourself for failure. Not achieving goals is usually the result of two distinct issues. Either setting unrealistic expectations or the negative imprint (limiting paradigm) hampers us from success. That is why I chose to use Best Year Yet in my coaching practice. You discover what is limiting you (often to your own surprise!) and then turn it around to create a new, powerful positive paradigm for success. You will be aware of it when you set goals, aware of it when you are risking failure, and can stop before abandoning the goal. Yes, it is normal. And yes, you can change!

How do I know I have the “right goals”? I’m not seeing good results and I’m getting impatient.

Advice: The first place I‘d look would be your values. Check to see if your goals conflict with any of your core values. If, for example, financial security is high on your value list, quitting your job and starting a business might not happen. You might instead want to look into purchasing an existing, proven, successful franchise business. If “family first” is on the top of your list, you might not want to pursue that promotion what would require you to work 80 hours a week.

Next, I’d look to your body for clues. If you are getting sick often (especially those minor things like colds that sap your energy so you’re “too tired” to work on your goals), or feel drained all the time, ask yourself, “Is this what I really want?” You’ll probably get some good clues immediately.

You might also ask others close to you. Tell them you’ve been working hard on your goal but nothing is happening the way you would like. Knowing you well, they probably have insight and helpful suggestions. Just sharing your goal with others, if you aren’t already, is critical. Writing it down helps us take it seriously, but putting it out to the world can bring concrete advice, help and even the result we want but has been eluding us. Time and time again, clients tell me (and I experienced it myself) that when they tell people what they are looking for, it comes to them!