Congratulations! You made it to the final email of the Right Brain Resolution Revolution. Now it’s time to take all of this, and go from INFORMATION to TRANSFORMATION.

Why bother setting goals in the first place?

Because let’s be honest, we rarely regret the things we did do in life, most of our regret is focused on what we didn’t do.

We regret the life we didn’t live.
We regret the chances we didn’t take.

The confidence, self-efficacy, mastery and resilience that we gain from achieving a goal, especially a hard goal, is something no amount of positive affirmations and rah rah praise could ever match. 

We don’t set the goal just to get to the finish line. We also want to enjoy, SAVOR, and grow from the ride... Don’t believe me?

Let’s think about this in terms of parenthood

We don’t get pregnant hoping to give birth to a full grown 45-year old adult who is happily married with two high functioning kids and is a...

If the word “drama” doesn’t resonate with you, feel free to substitute any of the following: because you have to want your dreams more than you want your:

• self doubt
• overwhelm
• fear
• stress
• cookie dough 
• temptations
• social media habit 
• chardonnay
• EXCUSES

or better yet ---> goodBYE drama!

For me, drama sums it all up nicely. It's taken me a few decades, but I choose to see all of my un-motivating mind chatter, bad habits and self doubt as “drama”. And I do want my dreams more than I want my drama. thankyouverymuch.

Our minds blather on incessantly to the tune of at least 60,000 thoughts a day. Does that mean we have to believe everything that we think? Hell no. Especially if we’re thinking of quitting our goals or drowning them in chardonnay.

Find an Exterminator for your ANT infestation…

ANT is a term from Dr. Daniel Amen and stands for Automatic Negative Thoughts. We all have them. They’re part...

Are you hiding your goals?

A lot of times, especially when we set some goals for big dreams, we keep them under lock and key. Maybe we have a big dream to be a New York Times bestselling author and our best friend doesn’t even know that we can write.

I mean, why be vulnerable and proclaim your big dreams out loud (and possibly publicly fail at them), when you can just tout your success after you’ve gotten the call from Oprah or Random House?

Accountability is the reason. 

But there’s a catch here. Telling too many people can actually hinder your goal achievement.

Psychologists call it social reality. And research has shown that if you’re telling everyone you meet about your big dreams, and receive lots of praise and well wishes (aka dopamine hits of instant gratification), your brain can be tricked into thinking it actually already achieved the goal.

As Derek Sivers says, "Don’t let your mind mistake the ...

Danielle hit the nail on the head, but, oftentimes, our follow through on goals is lacking. In a study by Adams-Miller and Frisch in 2009, researchers discovered that as much as 80% of our day's activity is directed by our "unthinking reaction to cues." In other words, we go through most of our day on autopilot, conveniently "forgetting" those big hairy audacious goals we have set for ourselves. 

Enter the primer ...

What is a primer? Primers are conscious or unconscious cues paired together that promote behavioral change. Translation por favor?

Basically, a PRIMER is a REMINDER on steroids.

Let's take an easy example such as starting an exercise habit first thing in the morning. Maybe you've even set a BHAG of running a marathon or a daily run or spin class IS your BHAG (sheepishly raises hand).

Whichever the case, if you have no daily habit in place (and you haven't broken a sweat in a long time), you need a primer. A  primer for exercise might be to put your running...

Are you already taking action steps on your goals? Wonderful! Are you still as motivated 12 days later as you were on day 1? Hopefully the answer is yes, but it's completely understandable if the answer is hell no.  Maybe you're now so overwhelmed by what you want to get done that 2020 is sounding like a better year to dive into all of this. Have you started telling yourself you'll just tuck these emails away and do it next year?

Don't quit on me, we need to just feed your elephant!

Let's remember, again, the duality of our brains. We've got our emotional brain (we previously referred to as our elephant) and our prefrontal cortex (our smart and savvy rider) and they both need to work together to get each goal off of the ground and all the way to the finish line.

Big surprise, your emotional brain wants immediate gratification and constant feedback to stay motivated. It doesn't want to wait 12 months to see results. It would rather have a glass...

I hope you had a wonderful first weekend of the New Year. Before we move onto how to make all of your right brain resolutions happen - we’re going to up the ante a bit during the setting process. 

Now your resolution list can definitely have some easy wins on it. If you are resolving to drink 64 ounces of water every day in 2020 - that’s fabulous. If you’re going to meditate for 15 minutes every day - wonderful (learning to meditate is one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself, by the way). These are small habits that can have a big impact on your wellbeing.

But let's also put some hair on your goals…

I’d also like you to consider having some BHAGs on your list. What’s a BHAG? It’s a BIG HAIRY AUDACIOUS GOAL. Martha Beck calls them your WIGS (Wildly Improbable Goals), Brooke Castillo calls them your impossible goals and Jim Collins calls them your BHAGS. I’ve recently come to...

Do you still feel as revved up and motivated as you did two days ago? If yes, awesome, if no, you are not alone. The pitfalls of setting NYE party resolutions are many.

We borrow a resolution from someone else that sounds pretty good - oh hey I'd kind of maybe also like to lose weight, declutter, get my finances in order, too, yet we lack the true intrinsic motivation to get 'er done.

The pat answers about our resolutions were easy to give at the cocktail party, but that doesn’t mean that they are especially meaningful to us.  

Change isn't a walk in the park. It takes commitment, perseverance and consistency. You need new neural pathways in your brain to replace rutted out old ways of doing things.

Our brains like to be as efficient as possible, which makes the old way easier. The new way takes time and effort before it becomes ingrained as a new way of life. So motivation for the long-term is key.

But motivation has to be your own, not...

The topic of the upcoming New Year can be quite loaded. Some of us are so ready to shut the door on 2019 and others are all amped up with lists longer than Santa's on all the ways we need to improve ourselves in the next 12 months. 

How we're going to choose to fill the next 52 weeks can be either exhilarating or daunting.

Whether this is the bitch of a blank canvas for you or a fresh start and a clean slate, it's an opportunity to set some intentions for the next decade.

Do Resolutions Even Work?

When set properly, goals and resolutions set at the beginning of the year can work wonders. When arbitrarily proclaimed at midnight on Dec 31 with no plan to back them up, well, yeah, those resolutions barely make it past the late-night Uber ride home. 

My favorite perspective on the year ahead is to think about the new year as 365 opportunities!

I realize that 2019 might have given you 365 ways to want to bang your head against the wall or 365 ways to...