Mind Like Monkey

Tired of New Year's resolutions? Try these instead

What are your New Year’s resolutions?

You know someone is going to ask, right? More often than not, I’m hearing people say, “I’m not making any.” And they go on to say that resolutions don’t work, they get broken right away, yada yada yada. And they’re right--all that’s true.

So here are some helpful alternatives to setting resolutions.

Create a no-words-images-only visionboard.

Boil your life down to three or four areas with the most umph and express what you want to achieve in the coming year as a photo or illustration. Want abundance? How about an image of an overflowing cup. Want to get fit? Find a photo of a person taking a walk. You get the idea.

Set learning goals.

  There’s nothing wrong with setting goals that are “SMART” except that those are very either-or--as in, you succeed or you fail--with no in between. So for every SMART goal you set, set two related learning goals. If your goal is to lose ten pounds, then your learning goals might be things like: learn how to create easy, healthful meals and learn how to fit exercise into my schedule. Spend twice as much time attending to your learning goals and your SMART goals will take care of themselves.

Choose a theme for the year.

Last year, my theme was “make it better.” Every time I tackled something, my goal was to make it better. I didn’t have to do a perfect job--if I left whatever it was better than it was before, I was golden. Find your theme and post it everywhere. Need some inspiration? Here are a few ideas:

• Smile.
• Give gratitude.
• Look for the gifts.
• Breathe.

The year is yours to enjoy and discover.

In this coming year, I encourage you to embrace your life with as much gusto as you possible can.

Happy Holidays from Mind Like Monkey

Christmas Traditions

Merry Christmas! Hapy Holidays! I love this time of year. There are many wonderful traditions surrounding the many holidays that coexist at the end of the calendar. It seems everyone has something to celebrate. Whatever your inclination, I hope this time of year is wonderful for you and yours.

Growing up, my family had so many traditions around Christmas. We used to hike into the woods and cut down a Christmas tree (always cedar). There was inevitably a bare side we had to disguise with something. Christmas morning, we had to make our beds, get dressed, make breakfast and have the table ready before we could wake Mom and Dad. Then we had to eat breakfast together before we could go see the tree and what Santa had brought. What an excruciating experience for a young child! Those few minutes seemed like weeks to me.

Many of my childhood traditions have hung around for my own family. We have a caroling party every year (It was last Saturday this year!) and have little green army men hiding in our Christmas tree. That started the year Toy Story came out and our son received a bucket of soldiers. Santa Claus took a few extra minutes out of his schedule to hide them all over the tree. The tradition stuck. Every year, no matter how much I protest, soldiers show up in our tree. We are down to only one this year, but he is on guard, up near the top, next to a silver ball. His lonely vigil is almost sad. I hope we don't lose this one.

This year we are going to add something to our Christmas Eve activities. My daughter is taking a class in school that requires her to visit several different churches as part of a project on world religions. We are going to attend midnight mass at the Catholic cathedral downtown. I have never been to mass. I have been to a few cathedrals in Europe, but know nothing about what will happen. I'm looking forward to it. It is way out of our comfort zone, since we are not Catholic, but I think it will be a great experience.

That is the challenge for this week. Honor your family traditions. Make a few new ones. Step outside your comfort zone. Let us know your favorite traditions we might incorporate ourselves. What are your favorite memories? Please share!

Picture credit: bbc.co.uk

2011 Goals

This week the monkeys planned on talking about our goals for 2011. I am going to shift that just a bit. I'm not ready to talk about my goals just yet. I am still working on them. Instead, I want to talk about the path I am taking to making those goals this year.

Usually, I sit down with paper and pencil and start scribbling all the things I want to accomplish. I usually split them into categories. The result is always really long and detailed. Here is a good example from 2009. Looking back at them, it is no wonder I didn't make the progress I intended. I could have kept writing for another hour, making goal upon goal upon goal. That is one of my problems. I weigh myself down with good intentions.

This year, I am approaching it a little differently. I am taking a more thoughtful approach. I am spending more time in the thinking stage and less on the writing. I hope is that by having more meditation on my goals, I will choose just a few really important goals that will truly change my life.

I attended a wonderful workshop this week on creating a vision board. It was put on by Kristina Ender, hosted by Tara Robinson, the Productivity Maven. I had heard about vision boarding and have even tried it a couple times. The process Kristina took us on to discover what we want to work on was fascinating and extremely effective.

I won't go into the details of what we did. You need to take her class for that. The result was amazing to me. In ten short minutes, she helped me pull exactly what has been troubling me for the past few years. I crave Personal Peace. I don't have it. One thing I found humorous, though, is ten years ago, my best friend sat me down and asked me point blank, "When will you find peace?" Well, here I am ten years later, still searching. Until this week, though, I didn't realize that is what I was looking for.

So now what? I am taking this new found knowledge and working on it some more. I am pondering on it and dabbling in a few ideas that I hope will help me move in the right direction. And I am doing something that Tara suggested. She suggested making it a matter of prayer.

Well, that suggestion hit me like a shovel between the eyes. I consider myself a spiritual person. I even work for a church. And I have never made my goals a matter of prayer. Talk about a humbling revelation. And why not? It makes sense. I tell myself God knows and is interested in me. It follows He would know what my goals should be. That is what I am doing now.

So, my goals aren't ready. This is the earliest I have started working on them, too. I'll share them when they are ready. How are you going about making your goals? Have you started yet? Do you have a process, a special place, or a way you go about making them? How to you record them? Do you share them? We would love to hear. Please leave us a comment.

Year In Review

I should be writing about how now is the time to pause, look back and congratulate oneself on the things accomplished this year. I should, but I'm not. Honestly, I am looking forward to this year being in the books and behind me. This rates as one of the three worst years I can remember. Unfortunately, The other two were in the last three. There is much to be learned from the last four years. 

Sure, there were some highlights from this year. I made some progress, learned more about myself and made changes. Boy, did I make changes. I am ready to sit and not have some changes for awhile. 

Without some friends, this year may have been a complete write-off in terms of progress. Trish Tobin reached out to me and threw me a life ring a couple months ago when I was drowning. I am much more upbeat about next year thanks to her cheering, coaching and holding me accountable. Everyone in a rut needs a friend like Trish.

That is my recommendation for today. As you go about evaluating this year, find a good, true friend who will listen and talk the year over with them. Talk the behaviors (good and bad) and have them hold you accountable for the changes you want to make. Trish has a draft of the goals I am working on for next year. She holds me accountable for the weekly progress I say I will make toward finalizing those goals. Come January, I will have something I never quite made this year - a written set of goals with next actions identified for each. She has made a huge difference in getting me off dead center. Thanks, Trish.