Turn New Year’s Resolutions into Long-term Goals with a Life Coach

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A life coach can help you go from New Year’s resolutions to long-term goals

A life coach can help you move from “shoulda, woulda, coulda” to long-term goals you can and will accomplish – starting with your New Year’s resolutions

Many of us have the same to-do list every January 1: get more organized, quit smoking, lose weight, fix our personal life, brush up that resumé and start applying for more challenging positions.

The fact that these perennials crop up again and again may be the first clue that resolutions as we know them don’t work.

Reframe Your Resolutions

Life coach Gwen Gnazdowsky, who coached me, suggests that instead of the same old resolutions, this year you engage in a reframing exercise.

Take a resolution you may have failed at before – say getting fit – and recast it into a positive. “Why not have it ‘This is the year that I have personal relationships, dream work that I love, health and fitness and finances?'” asks Gnazdowsky, who calls her coaching service One Conversation.

Rather than approaching a resolution as something you don’t currently have, consider acting as though you’ve already achieved it.

Pick Your Key Goals

What if you don’t yet know what you want to change? With a coach, says Gnazdowsky, “it can come forth in a conversation. Quite often we do know what we ultimately want, what we’ve always wanted, but we repress it, or don’t believe, or there’s insurmountable obstacles, or [we] don’t see the possibility.”

One tool Gnazdowsky says she uses is to ask the client questions about her dream life. “What would you be doing? Who would you be doing it with?” she says, demonstrating her follow-up questions. “As you hear people speak,” Gnazdowsky explains, “you can kind of get clear about what’s important for them.”

Rather than being frustrating, the coach adds, seeing where you want to be can revitalize you. “Even working toward one’s dreams gives joy.”

Gnazdowsky doesn’t just talk the talk: she reframed her own perennial resolution when, with numerous failed attempts behind her, she finally quit smoking after 20 years. “I decided, this is it. This is my date.” Today, she’s still smoke-free.

Here are 5 ways to actually achieve your New Year’s Resolutions