No one can change you except you.  You can seek out the help of others, but ultimately, you must take the action for change.

December, and the end of the year in general, can be a time of madness for some and a time of reflection for others.  Me?  A time of reflection.

I spent the last two weeks of 2014 traveling around Italy with my amazing girlfriend and she asked me a simple question, “What are your goals 2015?”

Powerful, but broad question.  Being me, and as you know from this blog, coming from an Engineering background, when answering a question with very little thought I tend to default exclusively to tangible, numeric goals, which necessarily don’t lead me toward anything.  And, quite ironically, the satisfaction of achieving a numerical goal is just that, an addiction to achievement.

Now, why is this bad thing?  

It isn’t always, however, lets tie this back to yoga a bit.  I subscribe to the theory of process or the journey or whatever it is you want to call taking one step at a time.  This is all just another way of saying you enjoy learning.

Yeah, doing a handstand is fun, but the learning you undergo to master a handstand, both physically and mentally, is way more fun.  And you’ll spend a ton of time learning it, so you better enjoy it.

So why can numerically driven goals be a bad thing?  They are if you focus only on the end result.

For example, try counting to 1000 by 10’s.  What do you feel when you’re on 4080?  Happiness? or Frustration?

Further, these types of goals can be selfish, again not all the time, but they can be. If you have a goal for 2015 to cure cancer in 50 people, there is nothing wrong with that.

Also, I hate to turn my personal goal sheet into a drawn-out philosophical talk, but, material goals are also selfish goals, fast cars, fancy watches, and all other luxury artifacts.  What good do they do the rest of humanity? 

Now this part has a high probability of being taken out of context, however, there is nothing wrong with selfish goals as long as they are balanced with goals that, you know, actually facilitate you becoming a better person.  If you are one of those people that only has selfish goals, try the latter, and you might end up with more friends.

Okay, so my person goals for 2015:

 

1. Asses Situations and Make Decisions Faster.

We’ve all been in positions where we have to make difficult decisions about something, whether it be about family, friends, or work or anything else.  Me, I tend to delay decisions like that.  And often times not because I don’t know the answer, because I’m afraid of letting someone down. 

And, especially as a teacher, when you are in front of people all day long, the tendency is to please and please all.  And the old phrase goes something like this, try to please all and you’ll please none and in the process you lose your identity.

And to add to it, delaying decisions because of the fear of reaction, you’ll miss out on chances in life, this has happened to me before and it sucks.  If you hesitate you’ll miss opportunities.

2. With People: Be more Direct yet more Compassionate at the Same Time.

This goes along with the first one.  Focus on the delivery of what you say and how you come across to people. 

 Life is a long series of necessary interactions with people.

In order to get what you want out of life, you must be good with people.  Being compassionate and making an effort to understand the other side goes a long way.  Everyone can use a little help in this area, including myself.

3. Find New Ways to Inspire New Students to Start a Regular Yoga Practice (My new Local Meetup ;-))

There are many reasons why people practice yoga, but ultimately we all want the same outcome.

Bottom line, I created this blog because I want to inspire as many people as possible to discover yoga and discover it to an extent to which it will change you for the better.

Yoga is such a powerful tool and the more people I can reach the better!

4. Read More: Absorb Knowledge like a Sponge

Last year I read about 93 books on pretty much everything, yoga, health and nutrition, science, love, business, history and some other random topics I’m sure.

One thing is certain, I enjoy constantly learning new things.  Knowledge is the engine that drives me.

Why I like to read so much?

Every once in awhile you read something so powerful it challenges your own way of thinking.  Some books have literally rewired my own mental framework and have made me a better person in the process.

5. Being More Comfortable with the Uncontrollable

Yoga is a funny beast in this way.  When I started practicing yoga, I had no control over my body at all.  I was like a clumsy athlete.

And in theory, the more and more you practice the more and more you gain control over your body.  You get comfortable being in control of all the movements you make all the time.

But there is this element of disconnect, or ‘non-attachment’ if you will, and surrender associated with yoga.

This is just me personally, but I also see it commonly in clients I work with, as humans we tend to worry more about things we can’t control versus the things we can, and this drives us insane.

The more and more control I gain over my own body (something I can control), the less and less I should be effected by what happens around me that I can’t control, but I have to keep reminding myself.

Whether you would like to believe it or not, yoga is just another form of self-help.

6. Continue Shedding the ‘Perfectious’ Skin

This one is the killer.

Let’s be honest about this one, perfection does nothing but hold us back.  Perfection is root of so many self-limiting beliefs.

Perfection in the reason it took me so long to initially launch this blog.

Think about it.

How many times have you actually feared going to a yoga class because you felt your own practice is inadequate?

How many times have you been in a yoga class and feared being watched and being judged by others?

How many times have you talked yourself out of something simply because you compared yourself to someone else and instantly thought you couldn’t do it as well as them?

The most difficult thing is removing the veil of perfection in one area of your life only to find it pop up in another.  It takes constant constant work and I continue to work on this daily.

Working on this is directly related to getting what you truly want out of life.

Every time I haven’t done something, said no to something, have been passive about something, or missed out on an opportunity, it’s root has been fear and specifically the fear of not appearing, delivering, or executing perfectly.

Constant work in progress and critical for your own self-development.

What are some of your yoga-related goals for 2015?  Leave them as a comment below, I would love to hear from you.