Page 5 - 2016.01.19Voices!
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Keys to YOUR Success!
by Mike Wiley, ACB, CL
Founder and Coach, Disciplined Life Coaching
For many people, a New Year brings new resolutions. However,
resolutions to be better and do better than in key ways, it is just as
last year. important for you to
keep your resolutions as it was for Roosevelt to
However, the biggest challenge with reso- keep his.
lutions isn’t making them, it’s keeping them.
Studies show that most personal resolutions For your own psychological health, when
for the New Year are broken or forgotten by you make a resolution or set a goal, you MUST
the end of January. succeed. This doesn’t mean you won’t occasionally
fall short and have to renew your commitment.
So, what can you do to make sure that you Those things happen.
keep your resolutions this coming year? The
following three attitudes are keys to success- However, if you give up on a resolution or
fully keeping any resolution or fulfilling abandon a goal to which you once committed
almost any goal. yourself, that’s a different story. You may not think
it matters, but it does. It has a subtle debilitating
#1: Recognize that you MUST effect on other areas of your life — relationships,
succeed attitudes, health, and work.
When we make personal resolutions, Change is hard, but recognizing that failure
there is often a little voice inside us that to keep your resolutions has its own hidden costs
is one key to keeping them.
says, “Success would
be nice, but it’s no big For the sake of your mental health, self-
deal if I fail. After all, it’s esteem, and emotional well-being, when you
only a commitment to make a resolution, don’t give yourself the option
myself.” That’s danger- of failing.
ously false.
#2: Take full responsibility for your
For young Theodore life
Roosevelt, such failure
was not an option. He Keeping your resolutions in 2016 means
was born frail and he accepting full responsibility for your life circum-
was soon diagnosed stances as they are now. This means accepting that
with severe asthma. His no one else is to blame — not your parents, your
life was often in grave boss, your spouse, your children, or your friends.
danger. The best doctors could not help him.
His constant gasping for air was a source of It means taking responsibility for the current
deep worry for his parents. Finally, his father state of your
said to him, “You have the mind, but you finances, career,
do not have the body. You must make your health, fitness,
body”. From that point on, he resolved to relationships, and
remake his physique and his health. spirituality. It is
Of course, we know the end of the story. one of the most
Roosevelt achieved great things, becoming empowering things
the 26th President and an enduring symbol you can do.
of energy and vitality.
Unlike Roosevelt, your life is not usually Try this right now. Think of an area of your
in immediate danger if you fail to keep your life that is not what you want it to be and then
say out loud, “I am responsible.” Say it again. See
how empowering it is?
Volume 2 Issue 6 - JANUARY 2016 5
