It’s almost 2023, and we all know what that means. It’s time to pull out our journals and write down the habits we are committed to changing, the goals we want to accomplish, and how we will become better people in 2023.

Here’s why this practice is wrong.

I’m a fan of writing down goals, but all the goal-setting in the world won’t mean anything if we don’t set our goals in a way that’s actually going to help us manifest them. Because our subconscious minds and the energy we put behind our resolutions, my friends, are the keys to setting goals that actually manifest.

Now, as a trainer and master practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), I know this. But years ago, I had no idea. Consequently, setting goals always felt haphazard. Sometimes my New Year’s resolutions would come to pass, and other times, I missed the mark…big time.

Now that I know how to set goals in a way that engages my subconscious mind, my resolutions manifest regularly. And the ones that don’t are blessings in disguise because (I’ve learned) usually something better is on its way.

Today, I want to share my goal-setting process. Applying these techniques will serve us as we write our New Year’s resolutions.

Step #1- Make sure the goal is a SMART goal.

S stands for specific, simple, and see ourselves.

M stands for measurable and meaningful to us.

A stands for achievable and all areas of our lives.

R stands for relevant and responsible.

T stands for timed and toward what we want.

So, let me give an example of a non-SMART goal versus a SMART goal. A non-SMART goal sounds like, “I want to make more money because I don’t want to be broke anymore.”

A SMART goal sounds like, “I make $5000 by January 31, 2023, so I can go on a trip with my friends. I do this by picking up extra shifts at work.”

See how one goal is vague and moving away from being broke, and the other goal is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timed, and toward-motivated.

By toward-motivated, I mean that the goal-setter is moving toward going on the trip with their friends, not away from feeling broke. Because here’s the deal: what we focus on expands. If we focus on being broke, what will we get more of? Being broke, right? So, we should always focus on what we want, which, in this example, is being able to go on a trip with friends.

Step #2- Discover the last step.

Determine the very last thing that happens to let us know we’ve got our goal. Then, visualize it. Using the previous example, perhaps we see our bank account balance is at $5000, and that’s how we know we made $5000 in January 2023.

Then, we want to see, hear, and feel what we will see, hear, and feel when we experience that last step that lets us know our goal happened. So, we see the $5000 in our bank account. We hear our friends say, “Yay! Let’s book our trip!” We feel excited and abundant. Maybe we even do a little happy dance.

It’s important that we look through our own eyes in the visualization. Really turn up the positive feelings. Imagine we have a dial, like the dials on old TVs, and turn that dial of positive emotion all the way to 11. Because our energy and emotion will supercharge our goal.

Once we’ve turned up the positive emotions to the max, we need to step out of the visualization so that we see ourselves in the picture. This is key.

If we stay looking through our own eyes, our subconscious minds will think we already have the goal and won’t feel compelled to help us get it. But when we step out of the visualization, our subconscious minds long for the experience, so they engage our Reticular Activating System (RAS). I like to think of the Reticular Activating System as a heat-seeking missile for whatever we focus on. It helps us attract people, situations, and opportunities into our lives that will bring our goals to fruition.

Step #3 – Let go of the ‘how.’

We don’t have to know how our goals will happen. All we have to do is set our SMART goals and energize them with the power of our subconscious minds, as we did in Step #2. Then, we can relax and trust that we’ve done our part.

Of course, we still have to take inspired action. We can’t set a goal to buy a Prius and expect one to magically show up in our driveway. Although, stranger things have happened. We still have to go to the lot, look at the cars, test drive the one we want, etc. So, when we feel intuitive nudges to take action toward our goals, we have to follow them, but we also can’t try to force our goals to happen.

Sometimes we obsess over how we think our goal should arrive to the point that we block our goal from showing up. The truth is that the Universe will probably bring our goal to us in a far wackier and cooler way than we could ever imagine. So, let’s set our New Year’s resolutions, take inspired action, enjoy the journey, and trust that our goals (or something better) are on their way.

Before I implemented these steps, my New Year’s resolutions often felt like wishes. I didn’t know if they would happen or not.

But after these changes, my resolutions became much more dependable.

What’s amazing about this process is that we actually accomplish more by doing less because our subconscious minds are helping us get our goals on autopilot.

So, let me ask a question: What is your biggest challenge when it comes to goal-setting?

Are you afraid your goals are too big? Do you wonder why you deserve to have your dreams come true?

Leave a comment below and let me know what your goal-setting challenge is. I’ll get back to you on how you can overcome it.