Where Are You Going and How Are You Getting There?

Are you excited for 2007? Is your life headed in the right direction?

Do you want to feel inspired, confident, energized, and ready to move forward with the life you want?

Feeling fulfilled and empowered is about making your desires happen. It's about acquiring and maintaining the fortitude, determination, and support to take yourself from the wishing stage to the doing stage.

Identifying Goals

For most of us, identifying goals doesn't seem to be very hard. We all have things that we wish were different and we can almost always list those things. For example, do any of these sound familiar?

"I'd like to lose weight and keep it off."

"I want a new job."

"I want to be able to do things that are out of my comfort zone."

"I really need to become more organized and focused."

"I'd like to mend some strained relationships."

"I want to reduce my stress."

These goals can feel overwhelming and out of reach. The first step towards making them achievable is to delve deeply into your objective and come up with more specific and manageable goals.

If you wanted to "mend strained relationships", you could explore the following issues to specify the goal even further:

How have these strained relationships affected you?

What if these relationships don't improve?

What's your history been in situations like this?

What has been your role in the conflict?

What is reasonable to expect of yourself? Of the other person?

Are you ready to change this pattern with this person?

What outcome can you be comfortable with?

After considering these issues, you might come up with the following goals:

"I will work on being kinder in my interactions with this person."

"I will learn to accept that the relationship may never be as I'd like."

"I will internalize the fact that I can only change my behaviors and will act accordingly."

"I will improve my ability to sincerely apologize and accept another's apology."

"I will better learn the art of self care."

Do you see how empowering and doable the second set of goals becomes? And these direct goals open up many avenues of self exploration and improvement, both of which are necessary for a more fulfilled life.

Make Them Happen

The next move is to take the right steps to make your goals happen. Do you have a history of getting stuck at this point? Not knowing how to overcome your obstacles and utilize your strengths? Falling short of your aspirations because you get frustrated, overwhelmed, or discouraged? Well don't worry because when you've examined and narrowed your ambitions, this process can come almost naturally.

At this stage you need a support, accountability, and idea partner. You may also need someone to point out your blind spots, challenge you to see the situation from different perspectives, and help you recognize your successes. The likelihood of your success increases by a tremendous amount when you've got someone on your side.

If you're working on your goal of "being kinder in my interactions with this person," then you might identify some of the following steps:

-make a concerted effort to be polite during our conversations

-be conscientious of my tone of voice

-be a good listener (i.e. not interrupting, ask questions, show genuine interest)

At the end of a conversation it's easy to assess whether you've implemented these steps and what changes you may need to make next time to move closer to your goal.

You don't have to just wish for things to be different in your life. You have the ability and the responsibility to do for yourself what needs to be done. You can make dramatic and lasting changes that will forever improve your life!

Corinna Bowers is a professional life coach. Sign up for her informational and inspirational e-zine here.