It’s never too early to make New Year resolutions

That’s right. It’s never too early to make New Year resolutions.

When I chat to mums, whether clients or at the school gates, they’re often a bit despondent at this time of year. Rushing around in the frenetic activity that marks the end of the term in the run-up to Christmas, understandably can be stressful and overwhelming. What you really want is to start the school holidays feeling prepared, relaxed and calm, without suddenly remembering what you have forgotten to buy, organise, cook or wrap.

Then there’s Christmas itself. Even if you do not celebrate Christmas, often the end of the year is a time when we take stock. We review the previous 12 months and we make fresh resolutions and plans for the next 12 months.

However there is no need to wait until New Year’s Eve, when quite honestly, we all know that some resolutions are made under the undue influence of fireworks or champagne! When that happens, we set a goal that is unrealistic or impractical. Then you get fed up or cross with yourself because your New Year Resolutions fizzled out once life turned back to normal. But that’s ok – if you realise that your resolution was overly ambition, that’s ok. Honestly. All you need to do is to readjust your goal and start again.

This year … let’s do it differently. Think about your resolutions for 2015 now. Before school finishes, before the holidays start, before the Christmas festivities take over.

First, spend a few moments reflecting on what happened to your New Year Resolutions from January 2014. Were your goals too ambitious? Were you unrealistic? Were they ‘dream’ goals set because it’s something you really want to achieve, or were they ‘should’ goals – goals that somebody else wants you to achieve or that you feel you ‘should’ achieve.

It’s powerful to set yourself a challenging or ambitious goal however if is too ambitious, it’s easy to give up. Equally if your goal is not ambitious enough, it’s ‘too easy’, we put it off and never get started. However the goal has got to be something that is really important to you. Dream goals are fantastic – if you have a vision, a dream of what you want to do, that’s brilliant.

However it is important to be realistic when you decide what it is that you (yes you – the one reading this blog) want to achieve.  Here are some simple questions I want you to ask yourself today.

• What is bothering me most in my life right now?
• What do I want instead?
• How will that benefit me?
• What will I get out of it? And what about others?
• What is a good first step to make a change?
• What could I do about it?
• What else could I do?
• What will I do first?
• And SPECIFICALLY when will I do it?

What’s bothering me right now? Well if truth be told, my marathon training is a little bit behind – it’s hard to get going and I have been neglecting my core and strength work. I’m worried that when the going gets tough, that I will talk myself out of the training because “I’m too busy”. When I talked to my life coach about this last week, I realised that I do not ‘value’ myself enough. Using my positive reframing strategy, I am reminding myself every day, out loud, “I am valuable”.

My personal goal for December is to get back on track which means I need to be more disciplined with my time management so that I book the runs in AND do my body strength work consistently. This will help me to maintain my running form on the day. My goal for 2015 is to continue to be consistent with my training.

What about you? Take time now before the hectic Christmas period starts to reflect on what you want to achieve in 2015 so that you have a clear idea of your goals for 2015. Create a vision. Are your goals realistic? Are they challenging? Are they challenging enough? What is your plan to achieve those goals? What support do you need?

Tell me, how can I help?