Chances are that a lot of you will be able to say yes to the first two questions and about three weeks to the other. This may not have been a great start to the year that you promised yourself was going to be better than the last one. I have certainly been in this position many times, but not any more. I have discovered a better way. It is a lot of fun and gives you a much better chance of success. I would like to share it with you today.

New Year resolutions are really just a collection of wishes with no real power behind them. There are several reasons why they generally end in failure. One is that, in all honesty, the cold bleak days of January are probably not best suited to contemplating going for a morning run, eating lettuce or venturing out to an evening class in the snow.

Another reason is that they generally consist of a series of 'shoulds':
"I should get fit."
" I should lose weight."
"I should curb my spending."
And so the list goes on, a recipe for complete demotivation.

A better way is to set aside some quality time to think really hard about how you would like your life to be.
What would your ideal life look like?
If you could have anything, do anything and be anything what would you choose?
Where would you live and what would your house look like?
What would you do for a living, how much would you earn and how much would you have in savings and investments?
How do you want to look and feel?
Who would you like to spend time with?
Consider how you would like your relationships and family issues to be. Where would you go on holiday and how often would you go?
What would you do for fun?
Really let your imagination run free. Don't let doubts stop you. This is a wish list like you have never made before – think big. It doesn't matter if you can't see how you could possible achieve them right now. You'll work on that another time.

You are designing your life the way you want it. If you were going on a journey you wouldn't set out without a good idea of where you were expecting to end up. Similarly, you can't achieve the life you really want if you don't know exactly what your ideal life looks like. You have to see it, feel it and get passionate about it before you can actually live it, so go on – get all those wonderful dreams out, set them free!

The important point in all this is that it has to be what you actually want to have in your life. There is absolutely no room for the old 'shoulds'. Banish them forever. Neither is there room on your list for other people's wishes. Let them make their own list. This is all about you – it is your list of your goals for your ideal life.

Another important step is to banish the word 'can't' from your vocabulary. DO NOT under any circumstances allow your mind to tell you that a goal is too big and you can't achieve it. We will find ways to tackle these demons next time. For now, just ignore them.

Now we begin to get serious. Having identified your goals you need to do two things. First date them. Go back over each one and decide when you would like to achieve them. Next week? Next month? By July? By the end of the year? In two, three or five years? Maybe in ten years time. Only you can decide what is right for you. Once dated, list them in priority order.

Next, take the dated list and rewrite each goal as if you have already achieved it. They should be re – written using the 3 p's – personal, positive and in the present tense. So always begin with "I am". "I am" is very powerful. It tells your brain that the goal is already achieved. Your brain then has to work day and night to close the gap between current reality and what it has been told. Add some feeling phrases such as 'happy' or 'confidently' to describe the way you will feel when you have achieved the goal. Finally be as specific as possible. You wouldn't set out in the car to go to a beach, you would have a specific beach in mind. Similarly, you don't want any new car, you have a specific make, model and colour in mind, so state this preference clearly. An example of a well written goal might be
"I am happily driving my new dark blue VW Beetle car with beige hood and beige leather interior."

Goals should be a bit of a stretch. If all your goals are in your comfort zone you will not achieve much of a change. If they are mostly in your panic zone you will not be motivated to do the work to achieve them. Goals work best if they are in your stretch zone.
If you are a bit anxious about how to achieve them but still willing to go for it, then it is a stretch, which is perfect. If achieving it is a doddle then it is in your comfort zone and has no place on your list because you should already have achieved it! If you feel terrified at the thought of it then it is in your panic zone. Goals in your panic zone can still be tackled and we will deal with this issue next time.

Comfort Zone_______________Stretch Zone_______________Panic Zone

There is a lot of work to do here to identify the goals that will enable you to live the life you truly want so have fun with it, go wild! It is an ongoing process. They are not set in stone, they are personal to you and so you can delete or add to them whenever you choose. You can also rewrite them as often as you wish to gain more clarity. Jack Canfield, in his books "The Aladdin Factor" (co written with Mark Victor Hansen) and "The Success Principles" (co written with Janet Switzer) suggests writing 101 goals that you want to achieve over the course of your life. So far I have listed 99 and I may decide that I want more than 101! You decide how many is right for you and keep adjusting to meet your ever changing dreams.

So, begin with the end in mind. Decide who you want to be by the end of the year. If you want to carry on as you are – fine. If you want to design your perfect life then you have some work and a lot of fun ahead of you, but I promise the rewards will be well worth the effort. The first steps are to decide on the goals that will enable you to achieve your ideal life and write them as if you have already achieved them.

I will leave you with one more thought. In an article by John P. Strelechy (author of "The Why Are You Here Café") called "The Gift of Time" he states that the average lifespan is about 28,200 days (adjust according to your expectations). It is easy to work out how many you may have left by subtracting your age from the age at which you may expect to die based on your usual family lifespan – it is not an exact science but bear with me. Multiply the answer by 365 to see how many days you may have left. Then ask yourself whether you want to spend them leading your present life or the life you truly want and deserve. I worked out that if I have 101 goals to achieve in my life (I may decide to have more) and if I live to be 84 ( a palm reading came up with this age) then I have to achieve a goal every 3 to 4 months. I have no time to waste and neither have you if you want to spend the rest of your days living a life you love.

Next time we will move on to mind mapping the action steps you will need to take, using affirmations, visualisation and other tools to accelerate your success. We will also consider how to outsmart those irritating negative demons and learn how to tackle the goals that encroach on your panic zone.

Happy Goal Setting!

Sue Courtney is a Personal Success Coach and Image Consultant. She can be contacted by email at: sue@successandimagecoach.co.uk