Jumping into 2012!

The other day I found an old set of goals in a book and was so impressed with my accomplishments! As a former lululemon employee and an education master's graduate, I find goal setting so important and rewarding. Our goals, according to many theories, need to be measureable, written in the present moment and positive. For example, one of my goals was: open a yoga studio by November 2011. As my mindset has changed, and I did begin a not for profit yoga organization, I would consider that an accomplished goal.

The best part of my old list is that I accomplished half of my goals! The other half either fell by the wayside or were goals that no longer pertained to my life. The intention of goal setting is to accomplish approximately half of your goals by your set deadline. If we accomplish more than half, our list was not full of challenging and difficult goals. If we do not accomplish at least half of our goals, we are either lazy or we set our bar too high.

In order to accomplish goals we need to set our goals in measureable stages. To open a business, you first need a business background, a support team, a location and/or space, and money. If you set timely and approproate goals like: "I will have saved $5,000 for my new venture by November 2012" it will be a stepping stone to your big picture goal. If we start off with just our big picture goal, with nothing to guide us in between, we often get ourselves off track.

New Years is a wonderful time to do goal setting. I am a huge fan of setting goals as I believe it helps create reality from our dreams and ideas. I also believe that it gives us something to work towards and something to look forward to once we have accomplished our goal.

Every year on New Years Eve, I buy a beautiful card. Inside this card I write a list of 25-30 things I want to do that year. Some of them are actual goals (finish my master's degree, begin Journey to Hope), while others are more fun or adventures (take a cooking class, get more mani/pedis, ride an elephant)! For me, this list is so much better than a New Year's resolution. While most resolutions last an average of 6-8 weeks, my card sits on my desk reminding me of all the fun goals and adventures I want to have completed in a particular year!

This upcoming years list is full of so many goodies: dive in Kay Largo, do something I'm afraid of, do another yoga teacher certification, do the clean program, road trip, attend Omega's service conference for Journey to Hope, learn to make artichokes...and much, much more!

I am personally so excited to see what 2012 brings us! I feel this year I will grow professionally and personally in leaps and bounds. So whether your New Year's Eve tradition consists of eating 12 grapes as fast as you can from 12:00-12:01 wishing on each one, or it involves taking a yoga class as you enter into 2012....or whatever YOUR tradition, or evening brings you - I wish you wellness, health and growth this year. I am so excited to have this organization, yoga & goal setting to share with you! I encourage you to make your own lists. Challenge yourself this year while having a blast as well!!

Happy, Happy New Year!!!!

Get out there - do yoga & make life sparkle.

Namaste,

Jenny