Your Best Year Yet!

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Eva Neuhaus, One of Thousands of Spirituality Coaches on Noomii.

I just finished a workbook that I highly recommend, Your Best Year Yet by Jinny Ditzler. She invites you to take stock of your previous year and formulate clear goals for the coming year by putting aside 3 hours to ask 10 questions, including:

What did I accomplish?

What did I learn?

What are my top 10 goals?

Here’s an excerpt from the book about the value of setting clear goals:

The results of a study of American business school graduates who had been out of school for at least ten years illustrates the power of goals. Eighty-three percent had no goals, while 14% had vague goals in their minds but no written goals. Only 3% had clearly articulated, written goals. When their level of accomplishment was compared ten years later, those with some sense of their goals earned three times more than the ones with no goals, and the 3% with written goals were earning ten times more than those with none at all!

Obviously the payoff for setting clear goals can be seen in other areas of your life besides just finances. Health, career and relationships can all benefit from specific measurable goals. The inspiration for this book came from Ditzler’s own life–she woke up on New Year’s Day in 1980 and proposed to her boyfriend that they run a marathon that year. By the following New Year’s Day they had successfully completed the marathon, and decided to plan for the new year by sitting down together to create goals for the coming year.

I like Ditzler’s approach because she invites you to examine your personal values, and set goals that are aligned with those values. Often clients seek me out because they’ve been pursuing goals that they thought they wanted, but those goals are not in line with the truth of who they are. Taking time to make sure that your goals are coming from your heart can save a lot of energy in the long run.