Wishing you all a peaceful and prosperous year. As you move forward in the new year please remember to be gentle with yourself. Let go of any lingering judgement or guilt that you may have as a result of not achieving all of the goals that you set for yourself last year. Take a moment and write down all of the things that you DID achieve no matter how small or big you think they are. I’m not just talking about accomplishments like getting a new job or starting a business. Those things are great but what personal accomplishments did you make? Be sure to write them down and congratulate yourself on them.

One of the things that I decided to do for my SELF last year was to create space for and give myself permission to feel my emotions. No matter what I was dealing with I decided that I would allow myself to feel and experience it without judgement. I also decided that I would create a candidate training program outline and I did. To some, those might not be big things but they were not meant to be either big or small but rather goals that worked for me.

That leads me to my next point for you: make your goals for the new year YOUR goals and not what the culture of this society tells you they should be. Don’t allow anyone else to tell you that you should be in a better job, relationship, house or anything else unless YOU want to be and believe me, YOU will know when the time is right for these things so trust your SELF for guidance!

 We all know deep down within ourselves what it is that we truly want but we sometimes allow others or the culture to tell us that we should be desiring something else. Something more in line with what others have or where others are. Trust your SELF to guide your goals for the new year. After all, no one knows you better than you.

I hope that as you move through the new year that you will truly take time to do something for your SELF. What I mean by that is do what will satisfy your soul-your SELF. Often we set goals thinking that achieving them will bring us the peace and happiness we desire but sometimes the goals are set for superficial reasons. For example, I have a friend who is overweight. Every year she sets a goal to lose weight and never achieves the goal. After seeing her anguish about it I finally asked her why she wanted to lose the weight. Her reasons were because she was tired of being the “fat” girl in the room and because people said she should. So I asked her why she hadn’t lost the weight. She said she couldn’t and cited medical problems, time and all sorts of other stuff. But after digging deeper I discovered  that she was grossly insecure and she was able to hide behind her weight. By being overweight people focused on her weight and not on HER. She was afraid that she was inadequate and the weight gave her an excuse to go unnoticed. Losing the weight would cause people to “see” and pay attention to her (she’s gorgeous by the way) and that scared her because of her lack of confidence in herself. She sabotaged her goal of losing weight every year because she hadn’t figured out what it was that she really wanted which was to be confident in her SELF..

So I beseech you, if you’ve set resolutions ( I hate those) or goals for yourself for the new year, to dig deep and find out why you have set those particular goals. Are they “cover” goals hiding something within or are they truly what you want for your SELF? If they are “cover” goals chances are that you will sabotage them and fail to achieve them. But if you have discovered what it is deep down inside that you truly want and you set a goal to achieve THAT, you will have a better chance at success. If it’s confidence that you really want a better job, house, car or relationship isn’t going to give it to you!

If you need help finding out what it is that you really want for your SELF I am always here to assist you. Hit the contact button at the end of this post and fill out the information to reach me. Or I can be reached at leisa@eatmydessertfirst.com.

I truly do wish you the best year of your life. May you discover all that you truly want and desire for your SELF and may you learn to trust and believe in that SELF! As always, take time to Eat Your Dessert First and start your day off with something wonderful!

Leisa