!!Everyone!! State Your Goals HERE.

It's really interesting about goals and whether people should talk about them. There is an excellent TED talk in which the speaker discusses how you should NOT talk about your goals. People who talk about them are actually less likely to achieve them than those who keep their goals to themselves. It has something to do with talking about achieving goals makes people feel like they have already accomplished something and then they are deluded. I'll have to find the link, but it was a very interesting talk.

I love TED talks. If you've never been to the site, check it out. TEDtalks.com

Sherry, actually that's very interesting. My husband and I go to a marriage counselor--not because there's anything wrong with our marriage but because we're young and we want to do things right from the start...go when there isn't a serious problem to learn how to deal with serious problems with they happen!-- and he says exactly the opposite. When we have a goal we want to accomplish we are supposed to write it down and post it where the whole household can see it. We write them on a mirror. And we recite them to each other every day. Our counselor says that if you do this for 30 days, it will become so engrained in your mind that you won't fail because it becomes your mind's reality. It's very interesting. I actually have had it work for me. For example. I wanted to get to below 150 lbs. So I wrote it on the mirror and told myself every day that this month I would get below 160 lbs. And then even when i was getting stressed and wanted to reach for a sugary snack to calm my stress down, something in my mind would trigger and I would stop and grab water instead. It wasn't a conscious thing. I am well on my way to achieving 150 lbs. This next 30 days, which starts tomorrow, I will be focusing on getting myself to exercise. I will write "exercise 30 minutes per day on the mirror" and then tell my husband every day that it's my goal. By the counselor's method, at the end of 30 days of this recitation I will just start doing it like it's a natural thing to do. In fact, about a week ago I started setting the alarm back an hour to start prepping myself for this and already I'm remembering that there's a reason I need to get up that early...so we'll see if by 30 days I start doing the exercise thing. It's pretty amazing. I love knowing that just by being open about things I can change myself for the better.

I also don't like hiding my goals because I think it creates more accountability. The people in my life will ask me if I'm staying on target. They will encourage me. They will tell me to "get back to it" if I'm failing. They'll be there for me when I need a helping hand to get back on track. I used to keep my goals a secret but I don't anymore.