Visualizing the RESOLVE in Your Resolution

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It's a New Year!

We put the old year behind and excitedly look forward to a fresh start.

Did you create a New Year's Resolution?  Did you resolve to DO something different?  GIVE something up?  COMMIT to a goal or result?

Good for you!

You've completed the first step of a successful Resolution -- the easiest step in the process.

Want to improve your chances of achieving this year's resolution?

Let's visualize, right now, each of the seven steps to a successful resolution.  By the way, if you are leading a team, these seven steps are based in solid goal theory.

Let's VISUALIZE!

NOTE:  Sit back and listen or watch this post so you can do this visualization activity right now!

Step 1.  Create a Rally Point.  A Rally Point generates excitement, energy and enthusiasm.  It keeps people motivated.  It is a clear vision of what achieving that Rally Point Looks like.   Feels like.  Smells like.  Tastes like.  Sounds like.  Describe your Rally Point with Sensorial Detail.  It's so real you are IN IT right now!   YUMMY!

Step 2.  Visualize Day 1.  If your vision is clear, the First Step is pretty easy.  You buy that exercise machine.  You ride that bike.  You take that walk.  Good for you.  Right now, visualize that first step.  Great!  Now, what will you do to reduce the barrier to take that first step each time?  My sister is an Artist and she told me if I wanted to begin painting, I should lay out all paints and canvass so I can walk right up and start painting.  How can you reduce the barrier of that First Step?  Make it easier to engage your resolution EVERY time!

Step 3.  Establish Rhythm.  Here's the biggest problem people usually face after the First Step.  They sprint at the start of a marathon.  They generate so much enthusiasm with that Rally Point, they BOLT out of the starting blocks like an Olympic Sprinter.  In a 26-mile race, they're gassed in the first 100 meters!  Visualize an even Rhythm.  How will you build your resolution into your daily or weekly schedule?  Open a calendar, point to each day of your resolution and repeat your resolution aloud for that day!  "I will…."  Visualize your new rhythm and feel it happening!

Step 4.  Step Over Stumbling Blocks.  This is when people lose track of their New Year's Resolutions.  Happens about Week 7 or 8.  They fail their resolution somehow and lose heart.  Maybe the Rally Point fades and the resolution fizzles.  Visualize that point NOW.  How will it feel to fall down?  You know how you get disheartened.  

And…

You know how you get up.  This is the RESOLVE of your RESOLUTION.  That moment of Truth!  You've done it before and you will do it here!  Visualize your process of saying, "YES, I WILL" after you've fallen!  

Step 5.  Establish Long-range Rhythm.  Now you're in those middling months.  You've got a rhythm.  You've stumbled and gotten up.  You're in it for the long haul.  Visualize it.  The Rally Point has lost its luster by now.  Little things can knock you out of rhythm.  Little disruptions like catching a cold, taking a trip or eating a glorious meal for your birthday.  Maybe bigger disruptions pop up like changing jobs or caring for a sick parent.  How will you maintain the rhythm of your New Year's resolution even through these times?  Will you give up for a time and pick it up later?  Visualize how that long-range rhythm feels.  Rhythmic breathing.  Cadence.  A sense of serenity fills your senses in the long-range rhythm.  Feel it?

Want to maintain that long-range rhythm when the going gets tough?  Enlist an accountability partner.  Engage a coach.  Join a MasterMind group.  Choose a community that shares your excitement and helps sustain your resolve when things get tough along the way.  Your resolve strengthens by helping them!  The probability of achieving your New Year's Resolution just increased exponentially!

Step 6.  Celebrate Along the Way.  High Performers so often don't stop, look around and say, "WOW, look what I've done!"  Visualize your celebrations along the way.  What do those celebrations look like every month?  At the midpoint?  Three-quarters of the way?  Visualize each one.  What will your little success dance look like?  

Wait, did I just see a smile curl on your lips?  Oh yea!  

Step 7.  Feel the Achievement!  There it is!  The end of the year is in sight!  You are so overjoyed of seeing that Rally Point, you pick up the pace.  Runners call this Kick.  You feel your blazing speed as you break the tape at the finish line.  What it will feel like to cross that finish line?  Your Rally Point is no longer in the distance.  It is solidly under your feet!  Close your eyes and visualize THAT feeling!  

What will that success celebration look like?  Next New Year the WORLD will celebrate YOUR success!  Fireworks will go off all over the world to celebrate.  People will party in the streets!  You made it!  Go out and celebrate THEIR successes, too!

And here's the cool thing about achieving your New Year's Resolution:  you established…a Habit!  

You know what's even better?  

Here it comes…

You just changed the world for GOOD!