One great aspect about the beginning of each new year is the opportunity to reflect on your life last year and CHOOSE how you will set yourself up for success in the next year. This can be a combination of selecting elements from the previous year that served you well and planning to continue them, as well as choosing to let go of other choices that caused you pain and anxiety. The New Year also brings a fresh look at where you’d like to see yourself change, enhance, or improve in the next year. This concept of New Year’s Resolutions is a great opportunity to take a look at ourselves, critique our successes and look for opportunities for improvement.

Another less common view of New Year’s Resolutions is evaluating your life and recognizing that perhaps you’d like to do less next year or maybe not change anything. We don’t always have to ADD more to our plate, in fact it can be more meaningful to take things “off your plate!”

In my role as a life coach, my focus is helping clients identify where they are now and helping them move FORWARD. As we look forward to this next year of our lives, what do you want or need? Do you want to find time for yourself as a person? Do you want to connect with like-minded individuals? Do you need to reach out and find support for yourself or your child? Regardless of what you need or want, I can help set you up for success.

Let’s talk about SMART goals. SMART is an acronym for a goal setting method unlike many others. This technique allows you to identify the goal so that you’ll know when you have achieved it.

S – Specific

M - Measurable

A - Attainable

R - Realistic

T – Time Limited

Let me show you an example! Let’s take the goal of finding some time for yourself and make it SMART. All SMART goals start with the statement “I will.”

EXAMPLE: I will spend 30 minutes 3 days a week reading a book of choice quietly by MYSELF starting tomorrow for the next 30 days.

This goal is specific, it says the amount of time and what you will be reading. This goal can easily be measured. You can mark the days and times that you read on a calendar or other tracking device. It is attainable, because most of us can carve out 30 minutes a day to read a book (or other choice activity) if we make the time for it. This may mean exchanging the time spent scrolling social media or watching tv. When you evaluate whether or not a goal is realistic, ask yourself “given everything else going on in my life, can I do this?” This goal is realistic because it’s set to only 3 days a week. We are much more likely to have success with realistic goals. It’s better to under promise and over deliver than miss your goal! Finally, this goal is time limited for 30 days. After 30 days, we’ll check in on the intention and see if this goal is still the best way to meet the need.

Before you get started, consider any action steps you need to take in order to make the goal possible. For the above-mentioned example, do you have books to read? Do you need to mark off time on your calendar to reserve the time? Setting the goal is only step one, identifying and completing the action steps are a must!

In addition to setting the SMART goal, consider the value added by working with a professional accountability partner. As a coach, I partner with my clients to help them stay accountable to their goals. I am there with you when motivation is low or needed from an external source. As a coach I hold my clients to what they say that want to do and remind them of why they’re doing what they’re doing.

Did you know that the majority of people give up on their New Year’s Resolutions by January 17^th??? That just makes me so sad. It has been researched and proven that you need at least 21 days to establish a habit. Invest in yourself and your goals, work with a coach and see better, more timely results!

Set yourself up for success, set a goal, work with a coach, and make 2023 INTENTIONAL!

Deborah Kelly

Certified Life and Health Coach

www.deborahkellylifecoaching.com

713-824-5853

What makes you happy? This question leaves a lot of people drawing a blank. In the world we live in, we focus on getting things done, taking care of children and family, going to our jobs, trying to take care of ourselves and all the things.

A lot of clients come to life coaches because they aren’t happy and they don’t know why. They’re left feeling like something is missing and they don’t know what.

Take the time to ask yourself what makes you happy? Do you even know? Do you Are you about to think about your own happiness in the mix of all else going on? Are you happiest out in nature? Are you happiest when being creative or artistic? Are you happy when you’re with friends and family and being social?

Take a minute and think. When you have an answer, take a look at your life and see if you’re making time for what makes you happy. If not, how can you make time it even in small amounts??

Do you struggle with motivation to do the things you said you were going to do?

Try this…each time you accomplish your goal (whether it be exercising, or searching for a new job, or cooking/cleaning) put 50 cents in a jar. When the jar is full treat yourself to something.

Decide in advance what you’re saving up for. Try to match the reward with the goal. For example, if you’re hoping to find a new job, each time you spend 20 minutes searching for the job, give yourself 50 cents and spend it on a new top for a job interview when the jar is full.

Another example - if the goal is around fitness, each time you exercise for 30 minutes deposit 50 cents in the jar and when the jar is full, but yourself a new workout outfit!

Try it, let me know what you think!!

Do you hate your job? Are you unhappy daily and wondering why? Are there parts of your job you like? Parts that you’re good at?

Look at yourself in the mirror and get very honest with yourself. What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What are your workplace values? Where can you find what you need if it’s not in your current role? Are you in the right field? Do you need to make a transition?

Living a happy life has to do with living authentically, living true to yourself and playing to your strengths.

I love sharing the common threads in my coaching practice. Over the past week or two there has been a lot of conversation of making everything fit.

One strategy I share with my clients is finding “pockets” of time to include the things in their days that are of highest priorities. What can you fit into a quick pocket of your time? If you had 10-15 minutes here or there what can you use it for? What would fill you up?

Whether you choose exercise, meditation, prayer, a nap, a phone call to a friend or anything else….listen to yourself, do what serves you and fill a pocket of time!

What if you lived true to who you are instead of what you think SHOULD do?

What would change for you, if you didn’t do the SHOULDs and took advantage of the COULDs.

I honestly believe that making this shift allows us to live a much more authentic life. If you do what matters to you Instead of what society tells you to do, that's you living YOUR life.

Change from SHOULD to COULD and see what happens!!