Here are the top four resolutions to think about making this year if you’re a coach, leader, or just all-around achiever.

These resolutions are NOT the easy stuff… the common suggestions you see most gurus making for the masses. At the same time, these resolutions are not giant goals, fantasies, or “deprivation attempts”.

They ARE simple, positive habits that you may, in fact, enjoy, and which are almost guaranteed to transform your life and coaching business for the better. They all help with both business and personal areas of life, clear thinking, and the ability to achieve some of the big goals a kick ass coach, leader, or achiever would set…

1. Meditate Daily:

It’s not sexy (kind of like “brushing teeth” for your mind), but calming and clearing the mind, and just relaxing in quiet contemplation is a very powerful resolution that can become a life ritual for your own empowerment.

How does meditation empower you?

• You’ll think more clearly
• You won’t react to problems and troublesome situations with as much negative intensity or chaotic thinking
• You will lower stress levels
• You’ll have more confidence
• You’ll solve otherwise intractable problems in your life and business (Many times this occurs DURING your meditations!).

2. Write in a Journal or do “Free Writing” Daily

Journaling or “free writing” sharpens the mind, clarifies your thoughts, and let you observe how your thinking could impact you today.

To do “journaling”, is pretty easy…

Everyone has written in a journal from time to time. This, alone, is helpful… no doubt.

“Free Writing” is a bit of a different animal…

In free writing, you write in a total “stream of consciousness” state of mind, unedited.

A few pointers for free writing:

• Write down everything that flows into your mind with no changes, no editing, and no punctuation…
• Write as quickly as you can (I tend to write lots of “chicken scratch” during my free-writing sessions, because I think a little faster than I can, at least, legibly, write).

The Steps to a Good “Free Writing” Session:

• Take five minutes and follow the pointers above
• After the five minutes are up, go back and read what you wrote.

If you’re thoughtful about this process, at the end of it, you may discover some of these benefits:

Your mind slows down… allowing you to think more clearly

You become more aware of your thoughts

Many thoughts are very negative and disempowering, and, 99% of the time, we are completely unaware that we’re thinking those thoughts). When we write these thoughts down, we can’t help but notice them, and, possibly, realize their impact.

Little by little, you’ll think more clearly.

This also comes as a result of writing down every single thought, rather than letting them swirl around in your head.

You’ll speak more clearly

When you communicate with others, you’re simply communicating an edited version of the thoughts inside your head. If you’d like to communicate more clearly with your “outer voice”, then start by being more clear with your “inner voice”… your thoughts! The more clarity and impact your “inner voice” carries, the more that’ll show up in your “outer” communications. This is one of the reasons why this process is especially beneficial if you’re a public speaker, coach, or leader.

3. Go on a Personal “Strategic Vision” Retreat

Each year I take 1 or 2 days to go on a “Strategic Vision” retreat to focus 100% on myself and my business. I’ve done this for over a decade now.

On this retreat, there are some rules…

• No one is invited.
• My cell phone is off
• No Internet.
• No interruptions or distractions

…and all I do is plan my year, set my goals, and create my vision for what my year is going to look like.

This time away from all of the Constant interruptions of life allows me to do a few things

Decompress…

We tend to be so stressed and buried by the day’s chores that we don’t think much about the future or the life we’d like to design. Getting some extra time away from all these things, you’ll quickly find that your stress goes down, your mind starts to work again, and you begin to expand your thinking without strain or profound effort.

Get Creative Time & Planning Time…

When you give yourself time away from the distractions, your brain starts to work again. It becomes creative, and comes up with:

• solutions to problems
• ideas for the future
• directives that could really change your life.

The thoughts and ideas that you’ll realize during your retreat are not just “solutions” or “strategies”… They tend to be creative ideas that can become important goals within a business or life plan.

Solve Problems And Clarify Already Existing “Good Ideas”

Many problems in your life remain unsolved simply because you didn’t take the time to think about the solution. When you give yourself time on this retreat, you’ll have time to solve those problems!

You probably already have several good ideas swirling in your head. Some of these are your own, while you may have learned of other ideas through study, seminars, courses, coaches, etc…

Wherever these ideas came from, most people don’t take the time to fully flesh out those ideas, and make them clear and actionable. During this retreat, you’ll have to time to do that.

To make your retreat a success:

Step ONE: Schedule it, Plan it, and Pick a location.

Find a date in your schedule that you’re willing to clear completely (no exceptions or meetings).

Make whatever plans you need, and choose a location (you want to get out of town, ideally, or at least get out of your normal “stomping grounds” (home, office, etc.).

I personally like to go to nice locations. I’ve had retreats in these places:

• the mountains of California
• Lake Tahoe
• Montreal
• Palm Springs
• Disney World Resort
• Hawaii
• Florida golf resorts and beaches
• Las Vegas
• Sedona

The setting makes a huge difference for my mindset and how productive the retreat is.

Most importantly, you want to set up your retreat so you’ve got no interruptions and you’ll be able to focus without distraction or thinking in your typical or habitual way.

Step TWO: Get your reservations

Once you pay for your tickets, this ‘retreat’ day WILL HAPPEN.

Step THREE: Show up.

Step FOUR: Decompress

As you begin your retreat, give yourself at least a few hours to do absolutely NOTHING… This is your “decompression time”.

Step FIVE: Capture

Go over your notes from the past year and itemize anything important in a simple list.

• Have you taken notes during seminars?
• Have you written in your journal?
• Do you have a plan from last year that you can review?
• Have you come across any information, books, and substance in the recent years that you haven’t had a chance to put into action?

…This is your chance to review all these nuggets. Do it!

Step SIX: Organize & Prioritize

Take the ‘capture list’ you created in step five and begin to organize it by highlighting and ordering the good stuff.

Step SEVEN: Set Goals

Now that you’ve reviewed all the ideas, this is a great time to set some goals. Based upon everything you’re captured and organized, what do you want to accomplish? What should you focus on?

Step EIGHT: Create a Plan

Create a short plan for achieving each goal that you set.

These plans don’t have to be extravagant. Remember that this plan is only an overview…

You can deal with the details later. For now, you just want the broad strokes.

Why do you only need the broad strokes?

First, during a retreat there are obvious time constraints you’ll usually be dealing with. There’s no time for too much unimportant detail.

Also, the broad strokes are most important so when you get home (or back in the office), get busy, and get stressed, you don’t have to think about where to start. You can just look at your plan for a simple overview of what’s most important.

If you can take those steps during your first retreat, I’d be pretty impressed.

The reality is, on your first retreat you may not get a lot done. You’ll get better each year and each subsequent retreat, and, eventually, it’ll become one of the most valuable things you can do, especially considering you’re using less than 1/365th of the time allotted to you in the year.

4. Set Real Priorities

Many resolutions are goals for things that are not important to the people that set them.

For instance, someone may set a goal to go jogging every day… even though their health or fitness is simply not important to them!

Nothing’s going to come from that type of resolution.

Be honest with yourself if an area that seems to be important to others is simply not important to you. Don’t bother! Focusing your energy on something that you don’t care about is simply wasting your life away.

If that area becomes important to you in the future, lovely! But, for now, live in the real world.

Setting real priorities is a matter of being honest with yourself and others, so that you’re clear on what really matters to you,

Stick your neck out and resolve what YOUR priorities are, not other people’s desires.

Once you know what’s REALLY important to you, you can begin to do something about it, including setting goals and resolutions that focus on that priority.

Which of these resolutions are you going to take on?
Have you already done a few of the ones I suggested above?
How have they worked for you?

What did I miss? Any other ‘advanced’ resolutions that we should be setting?

P.S. If you need me to mentor you 1 on 1 on your resolutions, I will. I actually love to work closely with coaches, leaders, and other achievers.

To find out how I can help, go HERE:

http://wellpaidcoach.com/mentoring-with-jeffrey

Some coaches will have no problem implementing these strategies on their own, but
the REAL QUESTION IS, do you want to do all that work YOURSELF?

(If you DON’T) — I’m ready to mentor you 1 on 1.

By the way… you’re invited to claim your FREE step-by-step “30-Days to Become a Coach” video toolkit. Just go HERE now to get your 30-day coaching blueprint videos.

Jeffrey T. Sooey
CEO, JTS Advisors
Founder, Coaches Training Blog community