Being positive is only part of the answer in goal setting

Welcome to today's issue of The Daily Dose of Motivational Medicine. The e-zine of Motivateme: Breaking the Procrastination Habit. http://www.motivateme.info. We would like to thank you in advance for forwarding this issue onto family, friends and any other interested readers.  Please note all back issues of this newsletter are available from - http://www.motivateme.info/ezine-archive/. We hope you enjoy reading.
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Do you have trouble staying positive? You start off on your new plan and everything goes well for a couple of days, and then things start to slide. Your positive thoughts aren't quite as positive. Doubts start to creep in, and before you know it, your new found energy for life, the plans you have start to diminish.

- You start to do a little bit less today than you did yesterday.

- You don't watch what you are eating quite as carefully as you did when you first started.

- You don't work quite as hard in the gym. Everything is more of an effort.

We are coming up to the start of 2007, a time when most people set themselves ridiculous targets and goals they say they want to achieve - by some unknown time in the future. These New Year's Resolutions are not worth the paper they are written on...why?

1. Because writing down a few lines isn't enough - "I want to lose 20 kilos"

2. Saying a few affirmations isn't enough - "I am thin, fit and healthy"

3. Having an unrealistic timeline makes life impossible, and adds stress and pressure to your rolling stomach - "I am going to achieve this goal by Valentine's Day"

What most people have yet to learn is that on their own these are not worth anything....they set themselves up for failure and they do it with good intentions. But what happens when things stop happening. The weight refuses to budge, the gym visits become less frequent, Valentine Day rolls around and you have to buy a bigger size outfit for the "special event".

There are a couple of reasons why this happens.

First of all it is hard to stay positive when everything you see and hear is negative. The people you meet are grumbling about how bad their lives are (compared to whom?)

The tv programmes are full of crime scenes and investigations - blood, guts and gore or reality tv shows...cheap tv feeding off the emotional needs of people to see how bad someone elses life is. Soap operas - where a major death cull occurs every couple of years so they can kill off the main characters which allows them to start the same round of unrealistic and unbelieveable plot lines with a whole new generation of cast and audiences.

And then there is the news....the coup, the war on terror, shark attacks, bombings, more blood, guts and mayhem

It's no wonder you have trouble staying positive with that going on in your mind. Turn it off.

And the reason why you turn it off is so that you have time to work out the reasons why you want something. Going back to the list of things you say you want - consider the main reason why most people fail is because they don't know why they want it in the first place.

Why do you want to lose 20 kilos? Is it really to fit into that new pair of pants? Or is it because if you don't you're going to be a heart attack candidate by the time you're 50?

What benefits will being 20 kilos lighter bring you?

If you are serious about getting more out of your life, and learn how to set goals that you can achieve...

1. Turn off the negative

2. Persist past the first 7 days - once you have set the routines in place, it does become easier - believe me, we all have to chip away at problems and setting new ways of being. It's easy to slip back into old ways of living and working.

3. Know what you want

4. Know why you want it - What benefits will the "item" give to you.

Once you have that worked out - you won't need New Year's Resolutions. Why? Because you are already on the way to achieving everything you ever wanted.

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