My most successful blog post in 2015 was called Why My Cholesterol is 248. In the post I take responsibility for my high cholesterol and poor eating habits. I also decided that it was time to improve those habits.

I posted that blog on October 2nd of 2015. I had good intentions to get healthier after that post, but it didn’t happen. No that’s not right. I chose not to take the necessary action to make it happen. 

We often have good intentions with our goals. But intentions mean nothing without action. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We must actually do something in order to achieve anything in our life.

How do you go from good intentions to positive action? It’s pretty simple actually. It’s all about setting clearly defined goals. Not New Year’s Resolutions. There is a big difference and I wrote about it in another post.

In 2015, I wrote a blog about my poor health habits. I put my intentions out there for everyone to see and I still did nothing about it. Why? Because I did not clarify what I actually wanted. I thought I wanted to get healthier, but I didn’t know how. All I needed to do though was write down my goal to get healthier, set a target date and determine what the first few actions steps were. I just had to do something.

Getting healthier is now officially a part of my 2016 goals. Yes I have written the goal down. And I have started working towards achievement. I am starting off at a slow pace because I know that trying to do too much often leads to failure.

My goal includes limiting the amount of gluten I take in, but not getting rid of it completely. It includes working out, but not every single day. I am shooting for two times a week for the first month. It is important that I begin to see some success before adding on to the goal. I will update my progress on this goal on this blog.

So what’s the point of my sharing all of this with you? Of course one reason is to for my own accountability. Sharing goals with others makes you more likely to accomplish it.

My other reason is that I imagine you have some thoughts on what you would like out of this new year. Those thoughts are good, but they mean nothing without action. Stop thinking about all you want out of 2016 and start actually doing something about it. You do not think your way to new behavior, you BEHAVE your way to new thinking.

Here are three questions to ask yourself as you continue to clarify your goals and begin to take action:

• How good can I be?
• How good do I want to be?
• What do I need to do to get there?

Reflect on those questions. Go through the goal setting process. Begin to take action. Stop intending and actually do something. Take control of your life. Take personal responsibility and Be the Boss of Your Life!

Don’t intend for 2016 to be a good year. MAKE 2016 YOUR BEST YEAR EVER!

If you could use some help in setting better goals, I recently released a free 4 week course on goal setting. In the course I help you create a roadmap for achieving your goals and avoid some of the common mistakes people make when goal setting. Sign up below!