Personal Development - The Life Uncommon by Nacie Carson - Personal Development for a New Generation » Goal Setting

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

Nacie Carson — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:37:49 +0000

…But if you try sometimes, you might just find, you get what you need! – Rolling Stones

This song has been going through my head on loop for the past 12 hours because sadly, I was not picked as The Inn-Bedded Resorter for The Balsams Grand Hotel…

…but I got darn close! Thanks to all of your wonderful support voting for me and leaving comments on my finalist page, I got into The Top 3 and yesterday it came down to myself and a pretty fabulous musician and all around good kid, Martin Earley.

In the end, the team up there decided to go with Martin. While of course I am disappointed for myself, I have enormous respect for Martin and know he will do a fabulous job. I hope you will all join me in supporting him as he takes on this great opportunity!

The whole experience for me, from my initial application to this very moment, has been something very special – sure, on the surface it has been about getting this great job opportunity, but at its core it has been an exercise in having faith in myself, pushing hard for something I wanted, and daring to go out and get something fabulous.

How often do you see a great opportunity offered and let it pass by, thinking you don’t have a shot at getting it? How often do you let your fears about yourself, your competition, or the greatness required of you to get something overwhelm your ability to just try?

Living an Uncommon Life is an exercise in putting yourself out there, trying hard, and believing you are capable and worthy for something really special. Being involved in this contest has reminded me of all these things, and reminded me that we cannot live passively, letting each day just slip anonymously by. We must live pro-actively, putting 100% of our consciousness and effort into each moment.

Sometimes, even someone like myself who focuses on these principles every day forgets this basic principle and needs to be reminded. And sometimes, trying and failing can be just as liberating and inspiring as trying and succeeding.

And I couldn’t have been reminded without your help. Thanks to you, all of you, I was able to make it to the top of this competition and have this amazing experience. If it wasn’t for your help, support, and faith in me I wouldn’t have been reminded of this simple yet vital principle.

To show my gratitude for all your support, I would like to offer you a discount code for 50% off any of The Life Uncommon products: this discount code is good on The Life Ucommon eBook , The Happy Rich System, or The Happy Rich Deluxe System. As always, there is a 100% money back guarantee if you don’t find these products inspiring, motivational, and practically helpful.

Simply type in the word “thanks” into the discount code box to get 50% off any (or all!) of these products. This code will be good through Saturday, July 3. Click here to learn more about The Life Uncommon eBook or The Happy Rich System.

I can’t tell you all how much I appreciate your support – and as we move into this second half of 2010, I want you to take a minute to consider all the things you have wanted to do, or still want to do, that you have held back from because you felt you weren’t deserving or able. We all have more strength, more power, and more energy inside us than we think…don’t waste another minute to unleash yours!

Here’s to your Uncommon Life,

May Day or Mayday: How Are You Doing?

Nacie Carson — Mon, 10 May 2010 16:56:57 +0000

Alright, friends and Uncommoners – I know it might be hard to believe, but it is May – actually, it’s 1/3 of the way through May…How are you feeling?

Five months for 2010 are in the history books and we’ve got a little less than 7 ahead of us ripe with potential and possibility. Are you feeling joyful and excited, like a kid dancing around a May Pole? Or are you panicking and trying send distress signals?

I always feel that this month is a great one to take stock of what’s going on, how you’re doing, where you are with your goals, and what you feel you need to do (or stop doing) to succeed. It’s not quite the half-way point, but it is far enough along that you’ve hopefully made some progress.

Got 2 minutes? Fill out my employment survey (I’ll love you for life!)

Think back to the goals you set for yourself at the start of the year – your resolutions. Better yet – go pull out your list. Can you check anything off yet? Which ones specifically have you made progress toward? Are you pleased with the amount of work you’ve done toward achieving this goal?

One of the toughest things to achieving a goal is to be honest with yourself about what you’ve done and not done. If your goal was to lose weight and you’ve joined a gym, that is a great first step – good job! But, how many times have you gone?

Honesty is so important when it comes to achieving your goals because without it you’ll never get anywhere. If you lie to yourself about how often you’ve been to the gym, you won’t correct course and actually start going. Denial is a powerful thing, but can be overcome with simple, direct questions and honest answers.

If you are looking at your list of resolutions and feel overwhelmed by how much there is to do try not to panic. Instead, focus on small, simple steps you can start doing this week to get you closer to your goals. Can you make that phone call? Schedule a few minutes to do that thing? Get those walking shoes out of the attic?

Make a commitment to do at least one thing this week to move you closer to your goals. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, just something. There is still time to turn this ship around, and lots of time left to get where you want to go. Get started today!

Here’s to your Uncommon Life,

Fighting Fear: Life is the Present

Nacie Carson — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:51:13 +0000

If you are anything like me, sometimes you just feel overwhelmed about making things happen.

As Uncommoners, it is our responsibility to take what we have in front of us and shape it into something distinct, unique, and meaningful – but as exciting as a task as this is, it is also incredibly daunting. After all, we might shape it into something wrong, or not do what we should have done, and then be unhappy and….STOP!

That train of thought can just get to you – and it gets to me too.

There are so many things that can distract us from our goals and make us feel we are less than capable of achieving them. I find the two biggest things aren’t things at all – they’re spaces in time: the past and the future. Let’s take a look at both and how to handle the affect they can have on the only thing the matters: the present.

The Past

All of us have one, and all of us are often reminded of it every day, be it good or bad. Our past stares back at our reflections in the mirror, it hangs in our closets, and surrounds us in the form of furniture, people, and stuff. Everything we have surrounding us now, but physical and intangible, were put their in the past – be it the immediate past (2 seconds ago), or the more distant past (2 months ago, two years ago).

Sometimes the past can prove to be a huge hindrance to our ability to get where we want to go for several reasons:

We have seen choice – consequence pairs in the past and are afraid to repeat them
We have acted in certain ways in the past or felt certain ways and are afraid to change or continue them
We see other people’s pasts in relationship to their present and are afraid to emulate them

As a trained historian, I have been conditioned to see the past as a valuable piece of the puzzle to understand what might happen in the future. But the more I live life, the more I see the past as simply a closed book of dids and didn’ts that don’t need to direct the dos and don’ts of today.

We can learn from the past, we can appreciate the past, but the past is over and needs to largely be let go. If you are finding it tough to act on the things that are important to you in the present, I want you to take some time and sit down with yourself to go through your past. Consciously pull out the parts that were happy, insightful, integral to who you are, and then kiss the rest goodbye and it go.

Happiness lies in the present, not in the past.

The Future

The future is an inspiring and amazing concept: it will become anything we make it, and lies open and waiting for someone to paint their dreams on it.

At the same time, the future can loom before us like an axe waiting to fall and a mess of probabilities that can scare the living daylights out of you. This is where I often seize up.

If you make the wrong choices in the present, doesn’t that mean that the future will be ruined? After all, you have to live with the consequences of today, right? Furthermore, there are infinite number of ways anything can work out, and even though you can plan things to go a certain way that doesn’t mean they will – in fact, they will probably go a way you never expected, right?

Sheesh! When my mind starts down this train of thought, I know it’s time to just relax and take a chill pill.

It’s true the future stretches out before us unknown and full of potential, and it is true that this potential is infinite. But what is the future really? How far in the future are you thinking? One day, one month, one year, one decade?

The big future, many years from now, is scary. But the immediate future, like tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, are more manageable because you have more control over them. The big future is full of unknown variables, but the immediate future can almost be tasted it’s so close.

Take a minute to appreciate the big picture every now and then so you can stay on course, but spend your time focusing on the immediate future – the journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step, not gazing in fear at all 1,000 miles.

Which is more daunting to you, the past or the future?

Here’s to your Uncommon Life,

What To Do After You Achieve a Goal

Nacie Carson — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:52:18 +0000

Achieving a goal is a wonderful feeling – as you coast across the finish line, be it a financial number reached, a certain amount of weight lost, or just filling out the paperwork to establish that new LLC, you can feel your heart swell within your breast, full of pride. You did it, you went from point A to point B. You overcame obstacles and your avoided temptation to stray, and now your focus has paid off. You have achieved a goal.

…now what do you do?

Before you achieve a goal, be it small or large, if you are anything like me you dream about what life is going to be like afterward. After I lose this weight, I will look fabulous in clothes, turn heads, and feel more powerful and confident. After I quit this job, I will be so much happier, smarter, and more successful – everything will just come up roses.

I’ve achieved a lot of goals in my life, of all types. I’ve quit jobs I hated, save money I wanted, started companies, lost weight, sold products, and gotten desired levels of page views on websites. I love the rush of the achievement, but am always faced with an old enemy after the goal is achieved: life after goal.

The number one thing I can say is that I always forget one key element when I have my daydreams of life after achieving something I want, and that is the maintenance required to keep it.

Life After Goal

The key thing to making any goal a real success, that is to say an enduring one, is not to see the achievement of the goal as the end of the road for that desire. Achieving the goal, in many ways, is just the first step – after achieve it, you have to keep it.

This is an area I confess I am still learning about. My Weight Watchers leader told me the other day that I was a Yo-Yo dieter, a phrase that shocked me since the way I see it I’m really good at setting weight loss goals and achieving them. However, when I stop to think about it, I am not well versed in making those goals stick. So the weight creeps back on, and then I get to set a new goal (which is really the same goal all over again), and experience the thrill and drama of working toward it.

A few months ago, I got so frustrated with myself because I found myself every other day cleaning up my home. “How does it keep getting so messy?” I would think, as I picked up shoes, fluffed pillows, and put dishes in the dishwasher. Then I had a thought: what if I make messes just so I can have the satisfaction of cleaning them up again. Pathological, to be sure, but a potential reason for my chronic messiness – I love it when it’s clean, and I find myself cleaning often. The act of cleaning is rewarding to me, so maybe I make messes so I can have the emotional benefit of cleaning them up again.

Both weight and maintaining a home a certain way are goals, and goals that I aim to achieve. However, am I like Penelope, Odysseus’s wife, undoing my weaving every night to prevent me from having to deal with something I am unskilled at or potentially afraid of, Life After Goal? Maybe I undo some of my goals to avoid having to face the next part: setting new ones.

What to Do After You Achieve a Goal

I wish I had a better answer for you than the one I have, but I am in the process of working through this – in fact, I hope we can work through it together. What do you do after you reach a goal to ensure its continued success?

Here is my best guess:

After you achieve a goal, you try to make the actions that led to its accomplishment habit.

Please share any thoughts you might have on this, Uncommon Minds want to know!

Here’s to your Uncommon Life,

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Spring Fever and Staying Focused

Nacie Carson — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:21:53 +0000

I don’t know about you, but when this time of year rolls around, my work ethic gets a little shaky.

I start catching myself giving wistful gazes out to the bright blue sky, chirping birds, and trees just bursting with life. Even though I know I need to stay inside and be a good girl working, the desire to just give into the warmth of a spring afternoon in nature is always so strong.

Do you feel the same way? Does the bright green grass just call to you? Some call it Spring Fever – I call it Spring Temptation.

The good news is that I am here to tell you that you don’t need to fight Spring Temptation by locking yourself away and missing all the beauty of it – quite the opposite! You just need to go into this season of gorgeous weather with a game plan for how you are going to balance soaking up the gifts of nature and achieving your goals.

Here are some good strategies to help you enjoy the spring without cutting into your work time. What would you recommend?

Re-Evaluate Your Routine

One of the first things you can do to stay focused during the spring season is to reconsider your routine and rework it if necessary. Maybe instead of taking a lunch break indoors you can move it outside, or use your lunch time to go for a walk and eat while you are working sometime in the afternoon. Maybe you can move your errands day to a day on the weekend and take advantage of your bike or walking shoes to get you where you need to go instead of your car. Maybe you can replace one day at the gym with a walk around your local park.

The options are endless. By looking at your current routine, you may be able to shift around some responsibilities or re-direct some of your plans to incorporate more time outside and less time indoors.

Schedule Some Spring Time

Another thing you can do is schedule very specific times in your day or week to do a spring activity you enjoy – walking, biking, planting flowers, tending to your garden, or just sitting in a chair outside with a good book.

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Now that the clocks have changed, you can start incorporating some spring time into your schedule later in the day. Also, don’t forget to think about doing some grilling outside!

Switch Group Activities

Now that the weather is nicer, start shifting your friends away from going to the movies and hanging around indoors to activities that allow you to enjoy the weather as well. Simple things, like having drinks on your patio as opposed to a bar or finding outdoors exercise classes, can get you all the benefits of the season while not cutting into your time to work toward your goals.

Remember One Word: Balance

Balance is key – if you decide to take the afternoon off to go out and enjoy the weather, be sure you make that time up. I live by the 24 hour rule: if I choose to do something else during a typical working time, I have to make up the lost time within 24 hours. If I don’t do it in that time frame, I know it will never get made up.

So be balanced, be excited, and know that you have all the tools you need to handle that tempting siren called Spring Fever!

Here’s to your Uncommon Life,

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How to Let Go of Things You Want That Don’t Serve You

Nacie Carson — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:09:33 +0000

An interesting thing happened to me the other day: I got what I want…only to discover that I didn’t really want it anymore.

The Sad Story of The Jacket

Last summer, I found a leather jacket online that I loved, but unfortunately, it was a tad out of my price range. For months it sat online, tempting me to blow my budget and just buy it anyways, but I resisted. Around December, the website that was selling it took it down and didn’t even place it in the sale section. I figured the jacket was gone, lost to the ages, and all thought of it went out of my mind.

Yet at the beginning of February, while surfing around the same website, what did I spy lingering in the clearance section? The very same jacket. With its price substantially slashed, I squealed with glee as I pointed, clicked and waited for the long-desired product to reach me.

The day finally came when the UPS lady knocked on my door with the anticipated packaged. I ripped the box open, pulled away the tissue paper, and beheld something I had wanted for almost 7 months.

There was a great feeling of accomplishment and a sense of rightness in the universe, as I ran my hands over the supple brown leather. I smugly smiled to myself and thought, “Wow, this is a great example of the Law of Attraction in action, I have attracted this to me…” I reverently lifted the jacket out of the box, unzipped the front, and slipped it on…

…Only to find out it didn’t fit right.

It zipped up totally fine, the arm length was good, but (like so many tops) the jacket was too tight around the shoulders and upper back. My immediate thought was that I would just exchange the jacket for the next size up. But then I realized that the size I had on was the largest size the jacket came in.

“Maybe I could lose a few,” I desperately thought, as I observed my reflection in the mirror. “Maybe it will stretch out over time,” I hoped.

But the more I reviewed what I saw, the more I realized that there was no way this jacket would ever fit properly (unless I could shrink my skeleton).

How could this have happened? After all, I wanted this, I attracted it to me, the universe seemed to align to get it to me beyond all obstacles, why isn’t this working out flawlessly?

After You Get What You Want

So much of our lives are focused on getting what we want, whether it is a specific job, a specific partner, or even just a leather jacket. But what happens after we get what we want? Then what? And more importantly, what do we do when what we have wanted ends up not serving our purposes or just isn’t right?

The shock after getting what you want and finding its not right for you can be profound. You can feel foolish, guilty, angry, confused, and shaken about your ability to choose what is right for you.

But after the initial feelings wear off, one question remains: knowing something you wanted isn’t working/right for you, what do you do with it?

There are several options: You can try to make it work, you can ignore it, or you can let it go with gratitude.

These are the thoughts that I went through when I realized that the jacket just wasn’t ever going to work. I could try to make it work in my outfits and hope no one noticed that it didn’t fit right, I could throw the jacket in the back of my closet and ignore it, or I could return it.

Letting Go of Things that Don’t Serve You

Options 1 and 2 were tempting for the simple fact that I wasn’t ready to admit that something I had wanted wasn’t right for me. I figured the universe has given me exactly what I wanted, how can I spit in the face of that by getting rid of it?

While wearing it might not be a feasible option, at least I could keep it in the back of my closet as a kind of Law of Attraction relic, something tangible I could turn to for continue proof that it does work. And who knows, maybe someday I could fit into it…right?

How many times have you had feelings like this about something in your own life? You get that job, you marry that partner, you buy that fancy car…only to discover after the fact that for whatever reason, it doesn’t serve you in a productive and valuable way. It just doesn’t fit.

Yet I am willing to bet that instead of letting go of that wanted-thing, you held onto it for a number of reasons, thinking you could make it work, adjust to it and be happy with it, or ignore it and just move on with your life (and this additional baggage).

Letting go of things you wanted but don’t serve you is a hard thing to do. It feels like admitting failure or defeat, it feels shameful and ungrateful. Yet at the end of the day, the only real way to honor something you wanted that doesn’t serve you is to let it go with gratitude.

Be grateful that you were able to get what you wanted, but also be grateful for the fact that you learned that the wanted item did not fit. And by letting things go that do not fit you, you free them up to be taken by people for whom they would be a perfect fulfillment of their dreams.

After wearing the jacket around my home for several minutes, I came to terms with the fact that the only thing I could do – the only right thing I could do – would be to return the jacket. I carefully packed it back in its box, sealed it up, and with a smile returned it to the company with the hope that – while it didn’t serve me – it would be the perfect fit for someone else. And no matter what, that chapter of wanting was concluded, and there was something freeing about that. The sad story of the jacket is actually now in my mind a positive story about how to gratefully let go.

What are your thoughts about letting go of things that don’t serve you?
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Here’s to your Uncommon Life,

Is Self-Sabotage Hindering Your Uncommon Life?

Nacie Carson — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:56:29 +0000

Are you your own worst enemy?

Self-sabotage is a nasty thing, and the worst part is most of the time people don’t even realizing they are doing it.

Yesterday, I had to come face to face with self-sabotage in a way that I didn’t expect: my health.

For years I have been struggling with the after effects of having my thyroid removed due to autoimmune thyroid disease. Post-operation, I have found myself desperate to reclaim the energy, mental clarity, mood, and physical health that I had before the gland was removed.

These past six years have certainly been a journey, where I’ve gone through good periods and bad periods of functioning. Sometimes I feel almost normal, other times I feel like a train that has totally run out of steam.

So in my continuing efforts to improve my condition, I visited a natural health store to pick up some vitamins I’d read are important for my condition. There, I ended up spending over an hour discussing therapies with a natural health practitioner (who happened to be the store manager), that not only helped me get different (and supposedly better) vitamins, but also exposed many of the daily habits I have that self-sabotage my efforts to get well.

Under the advice of the naturopath (hey, I’ve got nothing to lose!), I am removing caffeine and dairy from my diet for a few weeks to see if that improves my constant fatigue, sluggishness, and mood. While I am not convinced the answer is this simple, I am willing to try this approach since what I’ve been doing hasn’t been working.

Yet this morning as I planned out my meals for the day, I realized just exactly how much caffeine and dairy I eat on a daily basis. Lots of coffee, chocolate, diet soda, milk, cheese, yogurt, etc. I must eat a dairy product at every meal!

As I realized how much of a dietary transformation this would require, I simultaneously realized the extent of self-sabotaging I have been doing over the years in terms of healing myself. While my search for supplements and habits that would improve my condition occurred on a daily basis, so did my unknowing sabotage of those same efforts.

Many of us self-sabotage in some way or another. I think that people who are endeavoring to live Uncommonly have a higher tendency to self-sabotage because on a subconscious level there is a fear of success and a guilt for living better than those around us.

The ways we sabotage ourselves and our Uncommon Efforts may be subconscious or completely ignorant. Did I know that dairy and caffeine were disrupting my medicine and aggravating the things I was trying to heal? No, I honestly didn’t. But I was still acting on them on a daily basis and causing my success to be hindered, which to me is the definition of sabotage.

The moral of my story: for six years I’ve been trying to find success at a certain thing, and that success has been elusive. If what you are doing continues to not achieve your goal, step back, ask for help or advice from others, and get an outside opinion about what you might be doing that is hindering you from reaching your goal. Then, be willing to try a new approach.

Part of living an Uncommon Life is to continue to strive for not only reaching your goals, but learning and growing as much as you can while reaching them. Don’t let self-sabotage, whether it is unconscious or ignorant, hinder your Uncommon Life!

Here’s to your Uncommon Life,

*Don’t forget to sign up for the new and improved – and free! – TLU newsletter by clicking here or enrolling below:

2010: Month One

Nacie Carson — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:21:52 +0000

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Good morning, friends and Uncommoners! Today we start the last full week of January 2010, and I have just one question for you: have you made progress toward your goals?

While it might seem a bit harping for me to pose this question to you, only three short weeks after the start of the new year and the establishment of those goals, frequent check-ins on goal progress is essential to success.

Goal-setting guru and noted psychologist Edwin Locke published a groundbreaking study in 1968 on the fundamentals for successful goal setting and achievement. In this study, he and his team noted that goal achievement was almost 90% more likely when participants felt a sense of progress toward their aim and received regular feedback from superiors.

Since you don’t have a team of psychologists or superiors providing feedback and progress reports to you as you work toward your Uncommon goals, you need to fill that role yourself. And you need to perform that role often.

When you don’t regularly check in with yourself on how you are succeeding in your goals, two things often happen: 1) you don’t move forward (at least not at the rate you’re capable of), and 2) your goal loses importance/attention/focus because you forget about it or it gets replaced with a more immediate problem.

People often ask me how frequently they should review their progress toward their goals, and unfortunately there is not a one size fits all answer for that question. Weight loss, for example, cannot be gauged on a daily basis as it is a cumulative result. However, eating well and to promote weight loss is something that can be checked in on a daily basis.

Regardless of what individual goals may require for checking in, I like using the monthly check in because 4 weeks is a sufficient amount of time for progress to be made, but not so much time as to be a problem if you find yourself severely off course.

In my opinion, the one month check in after setting any goal is the most important as it can save your goals from New Year’s Resolution syndrome (NYS). NYS occurs when you get all excited to achieve a goal a the new year, and then by week 3 it is back to business as usual and all efforts toward the goal have been dropped. The first month is the hardest part where your goal is really made or broken, so checking in before that point is key to pushing through and fighting off NYS.

So, with just one week left in the first month of 2010, I ask you: how are you progressing toward your goals?

Some questions to ask yourself today as you reflect on this question include:

What have you achieved toward your goals so far (small things, like joining a gym, buying a domain name, or cleaning out a closet count!)
What are you pleased with in terms of your progress?
What actions do you see yourself taking tomorrow, this coming week, and in February to keep going?
What do you wish you had been able to do better this past month?
What can you do to improve your potential for success tomorrow, this coming week, and in February?
What do you need to keep moving forward?

If you aren’t where you had hoped to be at this time of the month, don’t despair – you are here, you are thinking about it, and you have it in your control to take positive and proactive measures to get somewhere better by this time next month.

Remember, goal achievement is a journey. Your journey may take a little longer than expected, or you might end up in wonderful places you never dreamed of going. Just keep your eyes and mind open to opportunity, and your heart open to gratitude, and you will reach all of your goals – I believe in you!

Here’s to your Uncommon Life – and a killer last week of January!

Give Yourself the Tools To Succeed

Nacie Carson — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:05:42 +0000

Do you know what tools you need to succeed in your Uncommon Goals? What skills, gadgets, or resources are integral to your Uncommon Vocation? What do you need to live Uncommonly?

Arming ourselves with the tools we need to succeed is absolutely essential to achieving whatever task we have in front of us, whether it is moving into more fulfilling work or living a more authentic life. Tools act as supports, sidekicks if you will, that lend a helping hand in our times of need.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the tools I need to succeed lately. Last week’s articles on The BlackBerry Debate and my musings on business skills have been the direct result of stepping back and saying, “What do I need to achieve my goals?”

Yet tools for success are not limited to business endeavors. My thoughts on tools really expanded when I was at the grocery store on Saturday night (yes, I like to visit Stop and Shop at 9pm…).

2010 is going to be (and already has been) a big year for me in many ways. Aside from the variety of very cool projects and business opportunities that are on the table or in motion for the year, I am having a milestone birthday in the fall which I see as a fitting deadline to accomplish some of those goals that have been lingering unfinished for the past five years.

One of those goals is to finally lose all my “thyroid weight” (which would also aptly be named cheeseburger, french fries, and ice cream weight). As many long time readers of this site may know, I was diagnosed with Graves’ Disease in 1999 and had my overactive thyroid removed in 2003. I gained a significant amount of weight immediately after the removal of the gland, and while a good portion of it has been lost over the years, there are still some “thyroid” pounds that I’ve just never been able to fully shake.

After a successful round of Weight Watchers in 2008/09, I took a break from the diet circut, feeling overwhelmed and frustrated by what was left to accomplish. However, now, at the start of a new year, I am feeling re-inspired and re-invigorated to reach my goal and put 7 years of body misery to bed.

As I was shopping around the grocery last Saturday night, I realized as I was scanning the shelves and freezers that I wasn’t just looking for food: I was looking for tools to help me succeed.

When you’re on a diet, food isn’t just food – it is a tool that can decide whether you win or lose, literally. Just as you wouldn’t choose to build a house with silly string and bubble gum, you wouldn’t try to lose weight by buying Doritos and cheesecake. You need the right tools for the job to be successful.

It is important to note that tools can be a variety of things – from food to electronic equipment to certifications and degrees to office space to books to services to online sites. Anything that can be used to help you achieve falls into the “tools” category.

The more I started to think about food as a tool for my success, the more I started to appreciate the fact that for every endeavor, every goal, there are a host of tools available; some of them are good, some are better, and some are best. Apple juice is an OK diet snack, however natural apple sauce might be better while an actual apple is the best. The key is not just to find tools, but find the best ones for your particular goals.

Whatever Uncommon goals you are working toward this year, I want you to ask yourself one simple question: “What tools do I need to succeed?”

Here’s to your Uncommon Life,

How to Keep Your Resolutions

Nacie Carson — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 18:00:55 +0000

With all the craziness of New Year’s Eve finally over with, it is time to stop thinking about the year that was and start looking ahead to the year that will be. 2010 is a new chance for you to explore your authentic self further, achieve greater success, and live uncommonly.

One of the surest ways to reach even greater heights in this new year is to take the time to set your resolutions (aka goals) and write them down. For more information on goal setting, read this.

However, when it comes to resolutions, making them is the easy part. Over the years what I have observed to be the greater challenge (both with others and myself) is keeping them.

So to help you start the new year off right, I am going to share with you the fool-proof way to achieve all of your resolutions by the end of the year. Ready to really start changing your life right now?

When people make resolutions, they are all fired up on New Year’s Day – ready to conquer the world, reach their dreams, and transform their existence into their ideal image. This fire continues through the first week mostly, however by the end of the month life has settle back into its routine and all the lofty goals that are set fall by the wayside.

This lack of follow through is not due to a lack of desire by any means – I believe that when people set goals they mean to achieve them – but instead due to a lack of strategy.

Setting a goal without a strategy to achieve it is just like wishing on a star: incredibly hopeful but absolutely ineffective. The most common result from this lack of strategy is that people go all guns blazing into the first few weeks of the new year toward achieving their goal and then burn out.

Here is an example from my own life that I’m sure many of you can relate to: for years I made resolutions to lose weight and get into shape. So in the first weeks of the new year, I would go to the gym every day and work out for hours and reduce my caloric intake drastically. In the beginning it would be easy, and I would feel proud and self-righteous, however after a few weeks with this unsustainable lifestyle I would burn out, lose interest, feel overwhelmed, and eventually forsake the gym for McDonald’s.

How many of you have similar stories to this? Weight is an easy example, but people do this with many things, like being more fiscally conservative, achieving more at work, working on developing that hobby into an Uncommon Vocation, or even just spending more time with the kids. In the beginning it’s 110% involvement, and by Valentine’s day most people are at around 2%.

So here’s the great secret to achieving any resolution: create a slow but steady strategy.

When it comes to reaching your resolutions, it works much better to be a tortoise than a hare. The key is to take small steps on a daily or weekly basis that build on one another gradually over time, not to use up all your fuel in an intense blaze of glory that can’t last.

Returning to my example of weight loss, I did finally keep that resolution using the slow and steady strategy. Instead of pulling 1000 calories out of my diet at once, I endeavored to cut back by around 200 calories each day for a week. Then the next week, after my body was used to less fuel, I added in some moderate exercise every other day. The following week I reduced by another 100 calories a day and continued with the exercise. This pattern of adding exercise and reducing caloric intake in an alternating manner persisted until I reached an exercise level and calorie intake level that was not only effective in reducing weight but also felt comfortable and sustainable.

Slow and steady wins the race – or in this case achieve the goal.

The human mind is resistant to immediate and drastic change. Habits and lifestyles can’t be overcome in such a dramatic way, however they can be overcome with persistent and constant small adjustments. To learn more about the slow and steady method of achieving goals, read this.

I know that you can achieve all your resolutions this year. You just need to set up an actionable and realistic strategy that allows you to make easy to maintain changes in slow and steady way.

What resolutions are you working to keep this year? I’d be happy to brainstorm slow and steady achievement strategies with anyone interested in sharing!

Here’s to your Uncommon Life,