Move INTO A NEW GROOVE in 2010!

This is the time of year when many of us are thinking about the new year ahead of us. It is a common practice to begin thinking about resolutions for the new year. Of course, we all know the humour around New Year?s Resolutions?they often aren?t very long-lived (i.e. resolve on January 1, break the resolution on January 3!!) Like all good intentions, new year?s resolutions are just that?good intentions. They need some work in order for them to become reality!

There are some other resources you can use to help you focus on what you want as you look ahead. One is called The Coaching Game . I learned about (and purchased) this great resource while attending the First World Congress on Positive Psychology this summer. The game allow you to ask yourself questions, and then uses pictures, words, and stories to help you self-discover.

Another amazing resource that I have used with clients for many years is an Outcome Specification Exercise. This set of questions allow you to identify ? at a sensory level ? what it is that you want and how you will know when you have it. It is a modification of an exercise I learned when I became certified as a Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner. Ask yourself these questions to specify your outcome.

1) What specifically do you want?

Make sure this is stated positively. For example, rather than saying ?I want to lose 20 pounds?, says something like ?I want to be healthy?.

2) How will you know that you have reached your outcome?

Identify exactly how you will know that you have what you want. Identify what you will see, hear and feel, that will indicate to you that you have what you want.

3) How would an observer be able to detect that you have what you want?

Think about others around you?how would they be able to know that you have reached your outcome? What will they see; what will they hear?

4) What will having this outcome do for you?

Identify all of the benefits of having your outcome.

5) What stops you from having it now?

Keep asking yourself this question ?what else stops you?? until you have no more responses.

6) What are you willing to do in order to get your outcome?

This will help you to begin to develop the necessary action steps required to achieve your outcome?including different ways of thinking, feeling and behaving.

7) What are you willing to stop doing (something you have been doing that has been preventing you for getting your outcome) in order to get your outcome?

This last question can be very illuminating! Sometimes we get in our own way!

Try one of these strategies ? or another one ? and let me know how it goes!

In the mean time?best wishes for a GROOVY new year!!