Small goals for big change in 2012

I'm really interested in our relationship with goal setting - while having goals is universally deemed a 'good thing' we seem to spend much of our time either ignoring them or worse, self-sabotaging. This is the time of year for New Year's resolutions but how many of us will still be on the diet in February or getting value from the gym in March? So what is it about setting ourselves a goal that then sets up a parallel mechanism to subvert it ?

Robert Maurer, author of 'One Small Step Can Change Your Life', reckons that it is something to do with the size of our aspirations - ambitious goals, particularly the big hairy audacious sort, he claims, actually sets up resistance in ourselves, channelling our energy into fighting success rather than achieving it. He recommends persistent small goals and small steps as the way to get traction on the changes we want to make in life and work. A sort of 'Kaizen' approach to life coaching?

So I'm not setting any resolutions for 2012 but I am going to loose 1lb in the next week.. and the week after.

Happy New Year!