Succeed in the new year!

I’ve been doing a year-end review of my goals and intentions from last year (I did better on some than others, of course), and setting goals and intentions for the coming year. (Goals are specific targets, while intentions are more ways of being.) And of course, both of my clients yesterday chose to focus on what was coming up in the next year and how to set intentions, set goals, shape affirmations and take actions to move ahead in their desired directions. This is an important thing to do every year, whether you do it at your birthday, which is great for personal goals, or at year-end (either calendar or fiscal), which is probably more appropriate for a business. Here’s why:

In a study of 1979 Harvard Business School graduates, those graduating were asked, "Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?" Only

- 3% of the graduates had written goals and plans;
- 13% had goals, but they were not in writing; and
- 84 percent had no specific goals at all.

Ten years later, the members of the class were interviewed again, and the findings were amazing. The 13% of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84% who had no goals at all. And the 3% who had clear, written goals were earning, on average, 10 times as much as the other 97% put together. (Info from “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School”)

It occurred to me to write to you to suggest that you might want to



- clarify your choices for the next year,

- set some goals and/or intentions,

- make sure your affirmations and your action plans support your choices, and/or

- psychically look at the lay of the land in your business (the competition, your partners, or your negotiations) or personal life (love life, anyone?).

I’m offering you 5 free minutes (on a minimum 20 minute session), with all of my tools, tips and techniques, to support you in all of that. This offer is only good for appointments booked between now and Jan. 3, 2008, as its intention is to help you start the new year off right. (omg, can you believe it? 2008!)

And what did YOU do this week?

When I was a kid, every night at dinner, my Dad used to ask each of us, “What did you accomplish today?” I guess I had an answer. Must have, because the programming is so deep that I don’t even remember it. And no trauma there, either. My Mom tells me that one summer day, I answered my Dad, “I had FUN!” so defiantly that he stopped asking the question for a while.

The funny thing is, I can’t answer the question, “what did you accomplish?”, any more. Not for today, not for this week. And I don’t mean I sat on my butt and did nothing, either. I didn’t, though I was moving a bit slowly because I’m still recuperating from that nasty flu. I could write a list a mile long of stuff I did — but what does it really amount to? I mean, I did last week’s radio show, which I think made a difference for at least one person, and some client sessions that did, too. But that was what, a relatively few hours? In the course of a whole week? And all the other activity, the marketing, the sales calls, the emails, the cooking, the laundry, the paperwork, all that, what does it amount to? The truth is, most of it fades into one big blur. Does that happen to you, too? A few things stand out — a celebratory dinner with a friend, who just landed a terrific new job, an amazing client session or two, seeing my initial designs up on the web on CafePress for the first time (check them out at www.cafepress.com/flowersnquilts).

Here’s an even funnier thing — someone advised me to write down 5 things I’d accomplished each day, and said, if you can’t find five, you’re not looking low enough. Some days, I had to look pretty darn low, and that didn’t make me feel any better.

So part of me wants to be frustrated. Another week, and despite lots of effort, I seem no closer to my goals. It seems like nothing’s happening.

But another, wiser part of me knows that this is life on the plateau, one of those long stretches of life where you are just working steadily for what you want. Nothing big happens. Nothing bad happens. That part of me knows that life isn’t all highs, or lows (which I’m grateful for avoiding for another week). I do believe that what you put out comes back to you, so I have to believe all this effort will pay off somewhere, someday, somehow.

In Mastery, George Leonard says (and I’m paraphrasing here) you have to learn to love the plateau, because that’s what most of life is, and because those long stretches on the plateau are necessary preparation for the big breakthroughs.

Maybe this isn’t the most direct path to my goals, but maybe it’s the easiest. I did say I wanted ease and flow! And you have to be very careful what you ask for, because you will get it — the Law of Unintended Consequences is a corollary to the Law of Attraction. Maybe my path on the plateau is longer because of that.

I am learning, somewhat grudgingly, to love the plateau, and to love not only what I choose to create, but how I choose to create it.

I hope you are, too!