The secret weapon to achieving your goals

Whether you buy-in to the new year's resolution or not, it’s natural that at the beginning of the year, we think about what we want for the next 12 months and make some form of plan to achieve it.

If you’re a more diligent planner, you might also pay attention to the things you need to help you achieve your goals.

But how many of us pay attention to the one thing we really need to help us successfully fulfill our intentions? To the one thing that we can do to set ourselves up for success?

Before I made the decision to create a purpose-aligned career and become a coach and counsellor for other professional women, I helped organisations achieve large-scale changes. I won't bore you with the details, but there was one consistent difference between the changes that succeeded and those that failed. Successful projects had constraints; they made it clear what they were - and weren't - going to put their resources towards achieving.

It’s the same with achieving our goals on a personal level.

Think about the last time you met one of your personal goals, whether it was as recent as yesterday or a year or more ago. Was all of your time and energy dedicated to this goal, or were you managing potentially dozens of other obligations and activities as well?

I’m willing to bet that you were managing a range of demands - perhaps work, study, family, friends, exercise, or community activities - alongside the personal goal you were working toward. And at some point, something had to give. You either had to let your goal go, reduce your expectations of success, or you had to say no to some social activities, drop a gym class or get someone else to do the school pickup, or (sacrilege of all sacrileges as far as I’m concerned) sleep less!

I’ve been there myself; unfortunately, I was a repeat offender when it comes to seriously overcommitting myself 😒 I’ve made all the mistakes, trust me. But what I’ve learned through this experience, both professionally and personally, is the necessity of boundaries.

When you set boundaries, you’re making a distinction between yourself and others. You’re drawing a line in the sand between what’s genuinely important and what’s not.

When you set boundaries, you’re practicing self-care. You’re sequestering something precious to protect it from outside forces.

In fact, when you set boundaries, you’re protecting the two things you need to do anything and everything, personally and professionally. It’s not money or other people, special skills or equipment. It’s time and energy. The two essential ingredients to any successful endeavour, whether personal or professional.

What’s ironic (or at least I think so) is that these two ingredients have their own constraints.

• Time itself is constrained by it’s finite nature. We can’t create more of it. It’s not like money - as a society, we make more of it all the time. It’s not like people - you can always make new contacts. It’s not like skills or equipment - you can always acquire these. But there’s 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. That’s it. That’s time. We cannot change this.

• Energy’s constraint is it’s nature as a depletable resource; it requires us to frequently restock our reserves through physical and mental downtime, restful sleep and good nutrition. We can always do things, and often do them well, without one or more of money, people, skills or equipment. But we can’t do anything - let alone do it well - without energy.

What are you prepared to say yes or no to, to protect the time & energy you have and direct it towards what’s important to you?

Where is the line you’re drawing in the sand?

If your answer to this is “I don’t know”, don’t worry - you’re not alone. We’ve been so conditioned to say “yes” to everything, to get up at 5am to fit everything in, to get slow cookers and do meal prep, rather than to actually consider there might be something we’d just be better off saying “no” to. Or perhaps you have set some boundaries and are trying to uphold them, but it's not working out so well for you?

Well, I’m here to make things a little easier for you with the 5 Principles of Successful Boundaries.

The good news is, it’s never too late to develop clear boundaries.

So if you want to confidently know what to say “yes” or “no” to when things inevitably make demands of your time and energy, I invite you to use these 5 principles to create effective boundaries that will help you achieve your goals - this year and beyond!