How Not To Fail

Alright, I admit that the headline there was really to get your attention. Truth is, we all fail at something on a pretty consistent basis. It's as inevitable as death and taxes so you might as well stop pretending it's ever going to stop and start trying to figure out ways to minimize!

While I have never been a real proponent of making a bunch of New Year's Resolutions, I do tend to be in a constant state of self-evaluation and re-evaluation (just ask my wife!). Chances are that pretty much all of us spend some amount of time taking a look at ourselves, wondering how to lose 20 more pounds or wanting to keep a cleaner house or figuring out how to make more money. Take a minute and be brutally honest, are you setting yourself up for success when you do this or are you planning grand schemes in your head that deep down you know you are never going to attain? To answer that question, answer this one. Have you ever made these types of comments to yourself and/or your loved ones:

"I'm going to ____________."
"I want ____________."
"I need to _____________."

Fill in the blanks. It could be anything really. Stopping addictions, losing weight, less stress...you know all of the common ones. I submit that when you make the kinds of statements I listed, you are not setting yourself up to accomplish anything at all.

To succeed where so many have failed, you have to plan. Have you ever heard the saying "Fail to plan, plan to fail"? Me saying "I need to get myself into better shape" isn't a plan. It's more of a long-term goal. To get into better shape, I need a plan. Great plans are always made up of smaller and more easily attainable goals. So if my overall goal is to get in shape, then I need to have smaller goals that, joined together, help me accomplish my larger goal. For instance, I might say that step one is to commit to a 3-day per week exercise plan. I might also say that I'm going to cut out sodas or dessert every other day. That can all fit into a goal to lose 20 pounds. From there, I might move onto slightly larger things like running a 10 mile race in an hour. Could be anyything really. The point is to spend time thinking about my overall goal, how I can break it into manageable pieces, and then coming up with a plan of attack.

So now you have a plan. If you are like 99% of us, you have made countless plans. Many of them were probably sound, yet you still failed. Why is that? In a word...Accountability. Even the most easily attained goals or plans can fail quickly if you aren't accountable to someone other than yourself. Let's face it...we can rationalize ourselves to death. What you need is a person you can trust. Someone you can lay out your plans and goals for that will lovingly (key word!) keep you on track. We all need someone to keep us going when we don't feel like it. Someone to encourage us when things get rough and praise us when we do well.

Whether you make New Year's Resolutions or just generally have things you want to accomplish, if you find a trusted person to be accountable to and then make a plan with goals that you know you can accomplish, you will find that your degree of success will rise. I wish you luck and a very Happy New Year!