What do you want to achieve in 2011?

BY FR VICTOR PHALANA

I  still believe in New Year resolutions. What do you really want to do this year? Not other people’s expectations or wishes. What are your goals?

Goals keep you focused. A speaker once said to us: “Goals are dreams with deadlines!”

Before making a resolution—and even now, halfway through the year’s first month, it is not too late to do so—ask yourself these questions:

Is this what you aspire to something that you really want? Is it important for you? Does it matter to you? Is it sustainable? What is going to help you accomplish it? What resources do you need? What is the first thing you need to do to start towards this goal? Is it a long-term or a short-term goal?

I  suggest that you write down your resolution, write down specifics—vividly envisioning goals, describing fully what you want, how to get it andwhen you know you have it, and the benefits you will receive by achieving it. Then please get behind it.

Have confidence in it. Keep the commitment and motivation going. You keep your motivation going by reading them everyday, put them in a place where you can see them and read them.

Have a plan, take daily action, measure your success. Talk about your goals to a friend, a family member, a spiritual director or a colleague. Be accountable and get yourself a support system.

Most of us prefer to keep our resolutions private so that when we fail, no one can laugh at us. Confiding to someone you trust will make you somehow accountable.

Once you have identified your goals for the year and have made some resolutions:

1. It is important that you stop thinking and start doing. Give it a try. Remember that the longest journey starts with a first step.

2. Procrastination leads to cancellations. Do not delay a task or you’ll fail to finish it altogether.

3. You are the only one responsible for your success. You will have no one to blame.

4. Take baby steps; you can’t move from couch potato to become an instant marathon runner.

5. Achieve goals while having fun. This is not a punishment.

6. If you slip up, start over again and learn from your mistakes.

7. Create a good habit. Consistency counts. Practise your resolution until it becomes part of you.

Once your goal is clear, emotionally commit yourself to achieve it. Whether you want to lose weight, to have a regular prayer schedule, to have a spiritual director, to live healthily, to quit smoking, to enrol for a degree, to join the Green Movement, to enter the marathon—whatever you aim for, make sure that the goal is precise, realistic and measurable. Vague goals will be abandoned. A realistic goal can be measured. Learn to reward yourself after every success.

Keep on keeping on. Setbacks are not signs of failure but an opportunity to review strategies and start again.

Remind yourself of the words of the psalmist: If the Lord does not build the house, in vain do its builders labour. So surrender your plans to the Holy Spirit. Invite the Lord into all your plans and resolutions. Be focused and determined, just like St Paul who in his letter to the Philippians says: “I  keep on striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won me to himself….So I run straight towards the goal in order to win the prize, which is God’s call through Christ Jesus to the life above” (Phil 3:12-14).

Fr Victor Phalana ministers in the archdiocese of Pretoria.