Good Morning everyone! Welcome to the first work week of 2015.

I wanted to let you know that I am just going to be posting once a week in 2015,  at least during the school year.I found that posting on both Monday and Thursday was just a bit too much for me. I may surprise you from time to time with a second post but I want to make sure I can be as consistent as possible for my blogging friends.

Of course, a new year means new beginnings and I  know we all have hopes, goals, and inspirations to make our lives more meaningful in 2015. Many of us may have started right away on January 1st or 2nd creating the life we want for the next 365 days. For others, today, the beginning of the first work week may be when we hit the gym, prepare healthy meals, or set the alarm earlier for pre-work meditation for the first time.

I encourage each of you to embrace whatever you have decided to accomplish this year. Our year will be filled with highs and lows. At times we will feel invincible  and at other times we will be discouraged and wonder why we ever thought we could be more than what we were last year at this time. That is the nature of life. My message to you and to myself is: ” You’ve got this!”.

Here are some tips I have for helping to make your goals for 2015 a reality.

Enjoy the journey. We learn the most about ourselves as we work towards a goal. Life does not happen when we reach our goal, it happens in the process. When I look back upon my years in school, it is the people, classes,  and experiences I remember. Graduation is an accumulation of life experience celebrated in one day out of many days before moving on to the next phase of life.

Slow and steady wins the race. Set goals that are ambitious but mark out your course with smaller attainable goals to ensure your success. Many of us see the big picture and start out full steam ahead towards our dreams but we do not adequately plan for the time,discipline, and mindset our new ventures will require. Plan ahead. Set daily, weekly, and monthly goals. Have a plan for when you fall short with your efforts to get back on track.

Buddy up. It is easier to change with the support of friends. Try to find someone who will both encourage you and hold you accountable. It is usually easy to ask our good friends or family members to support us. Often our friends have similar goals and are happy to have someone to talk over the experiences both of you are going through. If you are like me, you may need to hire someone to provide the  tough love and say “Get it together!” when necessary. Hiring a personal trainer in addition to my regular workouts at the gym has made a huge difference over the past six months in how I approach many aspects of my life, not just physical fitness.  Unbiased support and accountability has been invaluable in working towards my personal goals.

Accept failure as part of the learning process. I don’t mean failing and giving up, thus becoming a failure forever. I mean trying, falling short or messing up, and then picking yourself back up and going for it again with newly learned lessons in hand. Just like a toddler falls down many times before it can walk, odds are we will  fail many times in our new endeavors before we reach success.

Be willing to allow you goals to shift and change over time. Often we start out on a path with a set of goals to be met and a picture of how we want our life to be and over time we find ourselves evolving in a direction we could never have imagined when we set out to create a better life for ourselves. This can be an amazing process, enjoy the discoveries!

Have a great week everyone. As always, I would love to hear from you!

Thanks, for stopping by the blog.

Until next time,

Laura