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Now that we are clear that negative emotions do not need to hold us back when setting goals, let us take one key area in our life and visualize what success looks like.

Go ahead and dream.

If you achieved WILD SUCCESS in this domain in your life, what would it look like?

If you had the job or the relationship of your dreams,

What would you be seeing?
What would you be hearing?
What would you be feeling?
How would your life be different?
Who would notice?

Dream big. This is not the time to be 'realistic' or 'reasonable'.

Allow yourself to picture what wild success looks like.

Are you smiling yet? Excited?

Good.

Meaningful goals should make you smile and get you excited.

(And maybe make you more than a little bit nervous!)

Now that you have visualized what success looks like in your chosen area, I have to warn you about a potential pitfall.

When we use visualization effectively, it releases all sorts of feel good chemicals in our brain and makes us quite happy.

Why is this a problem?

Because the brain has such great feelings thinking about our goals that it thinks that it has ALREADY achieved success! This is why day dreaming is so very lovely (and problematic!!)

When we have all these great feelings we end up doing LESS to achieve these goals!!

This can be hard to understand but think of it this way: we set goals and strive to accomplish them to feel we are living on purpose and to feel good about ourselves.

One of the pitfalls of visualization is that it creates these good feelings without actually working or achieving these goals.

What I am saying is that visualization is great but it is NOT enough on its own.

So, what should we do?

1) Visualize success and get clear on the goal BUT then take step...

Why are your goals important to you?

Sounds like an obvious question, but you will be surprised to find that it is a question which is not always that easy to answer.

Yet it is very important that we know why our goals matter and remind ourselves about this on a regular basis.

Research shows that the clearer your "WHY" is – that is why your goal is important to you - the more it will motivate you to take action despite the challenges that may show up.

Do you want to become healthier? WHY is this important to you?
Want to write a book? WHAT will it do for you to get this done? Why is it important?
Want to give up chocolate at night? To what purpose? How will it make you feel to achieve this?
If your goal is to make more friends, why is this important to you?

Don't skip this one. It is a short but powerful exercise.

Some of you may have heard of SMART goals.

Here are the criteria and some examples of SMART goals.

Specific - Studies show is that in order to activate our creativity, engage our focus and call out our best resources, the goals that we set need to be very specific. So what EXACTLY are you aiming for? Do you have a goal to read more? How many books will you read? What kind of books? If your goal is to connect more with family, who specifically will you connect with and how? How often will you initiate connection?

Measurable – How will you know that you have achieved your goal? Becoming a better person is not a measurable goal. Breathing and counting to ten before responding to sass from your teenager is more measureable. Becoming more efficient is not measurable. Getting through your task list at home before 2pm is measurable.

Action oriented – what will you DO differently? Becoming healthier is much too vague and does not specify the action. Eating dinner before 8pm on...

Let's talk some more about discomfort. Aiming high and achieving our goals requires us to do some hard work. But it also requires us to become VERY used to living with uncomfortable feelings.

Let me explain.

• Fear 
• Uncertainty
• Doubt 
• Shame

These are some feelings that we encounter when we want to achieve something meaningful in our lives.

When we first begin on the journey to actualizing our potential, we think that if we are feelings these things, something's wrong. We may think that either we are on the wrong path or that we are ill equipped to take this journey.

What if I told you that EVERYONE (well, mostly everyone that various studies have followed!) feels fear, uncertainty and doubt when embarking on something ambitious and/or meaningful to them?

I remember that when I was writing my book last year, I became very familiar with what I began to call 'the demons' of fear, uncertainty, doubt and shame. These demons would make me want to give up on a daily basis.

I learnt...

Goals outside our comfort zone challenge us and encourage us to give it our very best. They create the right amount of stress to help us perform our best.

There is, however, a fine line between discomfort and delusion.

Delusion means that the goals are so unrealistic that they are highly unlikely to be realized. Delusional goals are not only outside our comfort level, they are wayyy outside our current skill set and available resources.

Goals in the delusional zone set us up for failure, leaving us feeling defeated, frustrated and discouraged.

Let us take health goals. Committing to a non-negotiable regimen of daily movement maybe outside our comfort zone if we do not have a regular program of movement and lead a sedentary lifestyle. Setting and achieving a goal of regular movement will require us to make commitments and develop habits which will very likely be uncomfortable in the short run.

Setting a goal of running 10K outside every morning in the winter at 6am in Eastern...

Let us talk about career and personal goals for a minute.

You may be tempted to play it safe when you are setting goals. You may want to set targets that you can easily reach to avoid feeling the emotions that come with failed attempts at reaching your goals.

While easy goals may cause some satisfaction and feeling of achievement in the short run, (it feels sooooo good to tick off something off that list, doesn't it?) they do not lead to major progress or growth in the long run.

Your goals need to be outside your comfort zone to cause you to stretch and grow.

In other words, aim high. Get over playing it safe. No one who achieved anything significant in life did it while playing it safe.

Let the adventure begin.

Here is your daily dose of Wisdom for Living Your Best Self!

You will probably not meet all the goals you set this year.

Most likely not.

Even with the the best intentions, the right plan and consistent effort, you may not meet all your goals.

So what?

Realistically speaking, with some smart goal setting and positioning yourself for success, you are likely to meet about 70% of the goals you set.

Of course, it is also possible that you may exceed some or all of the targets that you set for yourself.

And without concrete goals . . . .

Well, you already know what happens to all the new Year Resolutions that you have been making in the past.

Unless you are living an amazingly well-balanced life, there will be one or two areas in your assessment which stand out as having a significantly lower score than the rest.

These areas of our lives are easy to ignore because it just seems very difficult to make a change in these domains.

But here's the thing: these are the very areas in your life that are calling out for attention.

The good news is that even a small positive change in these areas will improve your life satisfaction greatly and lead to success in other areas.

Let us take an example. For me, the area with the lowest score currently is my physical health. And because it is so low, I don't want to deal with it.

On the other hand, I also recognize that dealing with and making improvements here will have a MAJOR impact on all the other domains of my life.

Get the picture? So for yourself, identify the one or two areas with the lowest score in your life assessment. It may be relationships, finances or mental/emotional...

A very effective way to look at and evaluate the big picture of your life is to think of the various areas of life as 'domains'.

Here is a list of 10 domains of life. Use the list below to rank how you feel about a particular domain by giving it a score from 1 – 10. 10 is absolute perfection while a score of 1 would be an absolute disaster.

The best way to do this is not to overthink it. Simply go through the list below and write a score for how you feel about this area of your life. This is completely subjective. No one needs to know this score except yourself. (you might want to copy and paste it in a word document OR write it out)

The domains of life:
1) Physical health – sleep, eating, exercise, disease etc

2) Mental wellbeing – stress, negative thoughts, mental illness

3) Interests, hobbies, creativity – have you been yearning to take up knitting but have not?

4) Romance, love life, marriage relationship – are you happy with the way things are at...