The goal of losing weight was the same goal for the lady who did it and the one who didn’t. The difference was that one lady made a HABIT of eating healthy and created a SYSTEM for making sure she exercised several times a week.

It has nothing to do with the goal you set. It’s how much you focus on HOW you will reach that goal. It’s all about routines, habits, systems and having the self-discipline to follow through on the routines, habits and system.

The first thing you need to look at is WHY you want to achieve this goal.

That comes down to your values. If you want to get to inbox zero by the end of each week, that might be because you believe it’s respectful to reply to people within a reasonable time. It could be about efficiency or productivity. It may also be connected to wellness.

If you haven’t defined and made sense of what your values mean to you, it’s hard to stick to your goals. Losing weight may be about fitting into that dress before the wedding, it could also be about preventing diabetes that runs in your family.

• One is feeling confident.
• The other is health and wellness.

Once you’ve identified your values, that will help you develop habits, routines and systems. Going for a walk several times may be enough to keep diabetes at bay. Hiring a fitness trainer may be needed to whittle that middle!

To help you develop the habits, systems and routines to meet your goals as well as the self-discipline to follow through, I’ve attached some of my favourite books. These will help you get clear and develop that ability to achieve your goals this year!

What do you want more of? As we start to contemplate the coming year, set goals and make New Years Resolutions, you've probably thought about more of something. If you want greater success at achieving that this year, try doing  the following before the end of the year to get MORE!

What do you want MORE of?

• Happiness
• Time
• Joy
• Peace
• Money
• Confidence
• Productivity
• Willpower to eat healthily or head to the gym?

Why do you want more?
Perhaps a better question is WHY? Why do you want more of that? Why does that matter that you have more of that?

More Health? WHY?
If you want to be healthier in 2019, consider for a minute why you want to be healthier.

• Is it because you want to live longer?
• Maybe you want to be able to get on the floor and play with your children or grandchildren.
• It could be that you are tired of huffing and puffing when you bring the groceries in.

It may be all of those, but what is truly the driving force behind why you want to be healthier? Knowing why you want something will give you the motivation to make that goal stick.

Your why is connected to your values
The reason behind why you want to achieve something is that it's important to you. You value it. You may value your health, your relationship with your kids or your grandchildren or you may value self-compassion and are finding you haven't been too kind to your physical well-being lately.

Regardless of what you will set for New Years Resolutions or goals, knowing WHY those are important to you will help you be much more successful.

Let me show you how it works:
Here are some goals I've had over the last few years.

• To read 50 books
• To publish my first book
• To grow myself spiritually
• To strengthen my marriage
• To complete 400 hours of coaching
• To develop a stronger yoga practice
• To develop my capacity for compassion
• To spend 1-1 time with my adult children
• To increase the number of people who are receiving my weekly newsletter

My top value is Excellence. I used to think that meant good grades and being the best, smartest or quickest. Exploring my values has helped me to understand how the value of excellence shows up in my life and how it can help me to achieve my goals. Here is how I define my value of excellence:

• Excellence is living into my full potential each and every day and aiming to reach my potential in life.
• I strive to excellence as a person, wife, mother, grandmother, community member, coach, teacher and writer. As such I challenge myself, persist through those challenges by excelling in:
• My physical, emotional and spiritual health and wellbeing
• My relationships
• My service in my work and in my community

Look at my list above of some of the goals I have set over the years. The majority of them come back to living to my full potential, being my personal best and demonstrating excellence in all that I do, in my personal life and in my service to you and in my community.

When I have done the work to get clear on my core values, I can then be better able to set goals for 2019 that will stick.

What does this mean for you?
Here's what you need to do:

1. Identify your top values.
2. Then define what those values really mean to you.
3. Get clear on how they show up in your life and how you can be sure you are living your life aligned with those core values.

If you take time to do this before the end of the year, you can be sure to set goals and resolutions that are not only meaningful but that you will find greater success in achieving!

If you need help with identifying, defining and clarifying your values, grab the Values Verification course today. Schedule in a couple of hours to work on it in the next few days. Then, use your new understanding of your values to set goals for 2019!

Whether you do this on your own, or with the help of the Values Verification course, I'd love to hear how you are using your values to set goals for 2019! Shoot me an email and tell me what you've learned about how to make 2019 goals that stick!

I know I'll be looking at where I can excel next...I suspect that will be in The Training Library as I strive to give you my best, so you can be your best in both leadership and in life!

​Two years ago, I was crying at the beginning of December because it was time to write my Christmas newsletter and I couldn't find it in me to do. Try as I might, I couldn't get into it. I was already feeling the Christmas Blues start to wash over me, that just made it 10 times worse.

Have you felt you've been "failing" at Christmas? Keep reading to switch that feeling up fast!

Have you felt you've been "failing" at Christmas?
The year before I'd sent out my letter during the week after Christmas. I didn't want to do that again. I was feeling like I was "failing at Christmas." Maybe you've felt you've been failing at Christmas too! 

When I feel that sense of failure or inadequacy hit me, I turn to self-reflection. What the heck is going on Kathy?

This is how I deal with the "ugh" feelings
I did what I always do when I'm struggling and can't find a way out. I journaled about it. Not just once, but for several days. After some deep soul searching, I finally gave myself permission to stop writing a Christmas letter. What a relief!

Freedom baby!
That decision took a huge weight off of my shoulders! Following that, I made a few other decisions:

• I eliminated 90% of the baking.
• I culled about 50% of the decorations.
• I decided to rotate what was left of the decorations only putting some of them out at a time, so it didn't feel so full and cluttered.
• Instead of baking and worrying about a 3 page Christmas letter, I put some of that energy into joining a choir so I could sing to the seniors at Christmas.

It took away my Christmas blues!
Since that first decision and subsequent others, I've found that Christmas feels less heavy, in fact, maybe not heavy at all...perhaps even joyous!

I don't know if you can read between the lines, or perhaps are seeing some parallels in your life, but more than finding "the meaning of Christmas" I found my values.

I was wrong about my top value
I used to think family was my top value. It's not.

• The guilt I felt about my relatives not getting my Christmas letter wasn't motivating me.
• My husband's urge to bring ALL the decorations up so the family could enjoy them did nothing to remove the overwhelm and dread of all that work.
• The idea of my son moaning in delight as he nibbled my fudge didn't take away the fear of me not being able to resist it all day long...and seeing the number on the scale steadily increase over December.

Nope, valuing my family was not going to help me find joy at Christmas time.

So what has?

Values are not just words...they have meaning
Let me back up a minute and tell you about values. We often think of values as words. I value my family. Honesty is important to me. I place a high value on security, respect, fun etc. The list goes on. But what do those words MEAN to you?

An example of how you might define your values
Let's look at security for a minute:

• Security may be a job or a paycheque. It might be how much you have in saving.
• The neighbourhood you choose to live in could be a reflection of your value of security.
• If your husband has cheated on you, you may feel more secure when you have the password to his cell phone.
• If you mom fell this year, it could be the security of knowing she's in an assisted living home.

Can you explain what your values mean to you?
You must define what your value means to you. That means understanding how your values show up in your life. You need to know when you are aligned or not aligned with your values. Then, you also need to know what will get you back into alignment. Because see, it's when you are not aligned with your values that you feel crappy.

Back to my story!

My top value:
As I've explored my values over the last few years, I've come to realize that my top value is not family as I indicated earlier, although I was sure it was! Instead, my top value is excellence.

• How I define excellence is living into my full potential each and every day and aiming to reach my potential in life. I strive for excellence as a person, wife, mother, grandmother, community member, coach, teacher, mentor and writer. 

Here's the thing, when I was trying to "do it all" I was excelling at nothing! My physical health deteriorated almost as quickly as did my mental health. I was short with people because of the pressures I placed on myself. However, when I cleared the clutter of everything I was doing, I could focus on being my best; as a mom, wife, daughter and in my work for you and in my service in my community. The ugh is gone, because I am now aligned with my value of excellence!

What this means for you
As you finish this year off and begin 2019, I encourage you to do the work of exploring your values. Not 3 words on a paper, but paragraphs and bullet points and lists. This exploration needs to include feelings and body sensations. When do you know that you are out of alignment with your values and what actions or in inactions will bring you back?

I don't have time to tell you how this corresponds to your leadership, but let me tell you the brief version: HUGELY!  More on that in the New Year!

When you do this work, you'll spend more of your life living from your values and more of your life feeling the inner peace and joy from knowing you are honouring what is truly important to you!

I'll be writing 2 or 3 meaningful letters to meaningful individuals in my life after Christmas...that feels excellent to me!

Have a very Merry Christmas my dear! I hope you find time for yourself to be your best!
Kathy

Here is a quick quiz for you to rank how well you are doing in contributing to your wellbeing.

Do work to do these 5 core elements of well-being?

1. Express Positive emotions.
2. Feeing Engaged in what you are doing.
3. Ensure you are involved in good Relationships.
4. Finding Meaning in what you do.
5. Accomplishing positive things.

If you wish for more wellbeing and happiness, you might want to increase your focus on these components.

​I'll give you some ideas of how to do that below! It starts with Positive Psychology.

3 steps to help you impact your wellbeing!
When you focus on these 5 components, you'll be doing both. Here are the steps for doing that.

.......... √ Be intentional

• You can't do it all. Pick one area to focus on.
  • Perhaps you will choose to work on a specific relationship with someone.
    
    

.......... √ Create a habit of practice

• Change takes time and effort. Pick one small thing and make it a habit that you do.
  • You could start a habit of making eye contact and smiling at this person each time you walk into the office in the morning.
    
    

.......... √ Journal each day

• Documenting, reflecting and measuring is what truly makes a difference.
  • This might be as simple as marking a little check mark at the top of each day in your agenda when you do it. A line through the checkmark might indicate they smiled back at you. At the end of the week, you can notice how often you did it and how effective it was in making them smile. You might also notice what overall effect that has had on your relationship.

Other factors that contribute to your well-being
Tom Rath, whom I mentioned above, wrote not only the Strength's Finder, but also a book called Eat, Move Sleep: How small choices lead to big changes. Tom knows that these are the foundations for being able to do the others: Feel positive emotions, be engaged in what you are doing, have strong relationships, contribute something meaningful in your life and accomplish good things.

Work on the 5 components of PERMA, and you'll be contributing to your well-being!

1. Positive emotions
2. Feeing Engaged
3. Involved in good Relationships
4. Finding Meaning in what you do
5. Accomplishing positive things

We think self-care can only happen AFTER WORK
Self-care is often seen as taking a bath in the evening, going for a massage and of course, trips to warm sunny locations.

Self-care AT WORK looks like this:

• Standing up and stretching
• Grabbing a drink of water
• Going to the bathroom
• Taking a little walk
• Meditating for 5 minutes

🗣Self-care is preached:
Do you have policies about self-care? Maybe you even have a wellness committee. Perhaps your organization has yoga mats with your logo on them. Mine did years ago. We KNOW that self-care is important. But....


❌​Self-care is NOT practiced:
Think about it for a minute. Is it ok to practice self-care in your workplace? Or does it feel weird to do self-care activities?

• Do people look at you funny?
• Do you get the sense that you are seen as spoiling yourself, being lazy or just doing it wrong?
• Do you try to hide your self-care practice?

🚫Self-care may even be taboo!
If you were to take a 10-minute nap at your desk and someone walked in and "caught" you, would you feel as though you had just done something wrong? It shouldn't be that way, should it?


It's up to you to change the culture of your organization!
Women like us crave self-care. It's more than knowing it's important; We want to put it into practice for ourselves and our teams. We want to role model it, encourage others to take care of themselves. We want to let our team know that it's safe to practice self-care, acceptable and even encouraged.


It takes moral courage to change cultures
Last week. I talked about moral courage. That's the courage to do the right thing, even if it is scary, awkward and goes against the grain. Moral courage is knowing what is right and wrong or ethical and then having the courage to act on that awareness. We all know the right thing to do, is to take care of ourselves.


My challenge to you
If you are a woman leader, like most of us, you are ready to change your team.
I challenge you to add self-care into your WORKDAY and to encourage those around you to do the same.
Let me know how it goes!!!


Need some self-care strategies that you can do AT WORK?
This month's training is coming up on Dec 19th. If you want to learn some quick self-care strategies for you and your team, that you can implement quickly, join me here: The 5-Minute Self-Care Strategy for the Swamped Gal!

Take 5 minutes now my dear. Take care of yourself. You are a role model for the next generation. Let's teach them a better way!

p.s. I really do want to know how it goes! Email me and tell me what it's like to role model, teach and make self-care safe in your organization.