Some people think of goal setting as a dry, boring experience.

Best Year Coaching is anything but that! My experience of the goal-setting process is that it is enlivening and exciting for my coaching clients to put down on computer what is (sometimes secretly) in the heart.

Often there is surprise when, through our 3-Hour coaching session, someone discovers a goal that has been hidden even from themselves for years and years. It is fun for me to tease out the Oh My God Yes goals (whether they be business/career or personal goals) and bring them out in the light of day for us to really look at and pay attention to them.

I recently did a 3-Hour ‘Create Your Best Year Coaching’ Session with Pamela Batson:

Pam is a business owner living in Illinois and she came equipped with the goal of (perhaps) relocating to another state in 2013 as well as numerous other big and little goals. We also discovered some personal and work goals that she secretly desired but hadn’t yet clarified until doing her Best Year Coaching session.

It was exciting to have her goals unfold in a clear and powerful way and to see which goals most wanted to be on her Best Year Yet plan. Through our session she realized she wanted to move much sooner than she’d originally thought. Creating a definite plan in order for her move as quickly as possible (by the first quarter of 2013) was exciting for us both!

After our 3-hour session I asked Pam (see her picture below) some questions about what the session was like for her. She gave me permission to use her answers:

Kristin: What inspired you to want to create your best year?

Pam: I’m making some big changes, including a move, so I wanted to set a powerful plan into action. You’ve helped me before, so I knew that you would be able to help me set my goals into motion and build up my business in my new place of residence.

Kristin: Describe your experience of what it was like to create your best year plan with me.

Pam: It was powerful. I didn’t think it would take the whole 3 hours to go through the questions, but you were very thorough with me and helpful in working with me to set specific, attainable goals.

Kristin: Were there things that surprised you when you created your Best Year Plan?

Pam: I was surprised at how much of a difference it made to get specific with income amounts, time frames, etc.

Kristin: What would you say to others who were thinking of creating their Best Year Plan but hadn’t yet taken the leap?

Pam: I would say that it’s important to make the investment in their future and to have someone to be accountable to. There is something special about having all of the goals in writing rather than just having the idea in your head.

Kristin: Anything else you’d like to share about the process or your reflections after you did your Best Year Plan?

Pam: I have a renewed sense of motivation. I am confident that I will be able to make a smooth transition and build up my business again in North Carolina, making 2013 my best year yet!

“I don’t believe in life after death. I believe in life BEFORE death.“ -Bumper sticker

A few years ago I attended a meditation retreat.

Halfway through the retreat, the instructor led us on a meditation and had us imagine how we would live our lives if we had six months left to live.

I did the meditation expecting to see myself (in my mind’s eye) deeply connecting with my friends and family if I had six months to live.

What I saw instead was me wearing a travel backpack with a huge smile on my face.

It was surprising. And even a little shocking.

Travel is what I would do if I had six months to live? Really?!

I wasn’t quite sure what to do with this ‘vision’ I’d had. I had a thriving, booming service-based business with many staff members. I had a ton of coaching clients who I worked with weekly. I had a full life. I couldn’t just up and go abroad for a few months.

Could I?

And yet…

The image of me with a travel backpack kept tugging at me. I tried to shush it away but it kept nipping at my heels.

And I found myself getting really jealous when I’d hear about people taking extended trips abroad. Jealousy is always a sign for me that there is an unmet dream that wants to become reality.

It seemed completely unrealistic for me to stop my businesses for a few months and travel and yet I began to realize that if I didn’t honor this urge from my soul, my businesses would begin to decline as would the quality of my life.

Here’s why: When soul goals are not being met, life stops working. It’s a good thing though as we get forced into looking at what we truly and deeply want to create in this one great life we’ve been gifted.

Once I made the decision to honor my soul, things fell into place so magically (as they usually do when our soul goals are being listened to and honored). I created my own Best Year plan with specific and measurable actions to take to achieve my vision of extended travel. Within just a few months after making the decision to travel, I was on a plane to India and then Bali for 4 months. The next year I went away for 8 months. My life has never been the same. Ever.

Soul goals lead us to where we need to be.

Even if (and often especially if) it doesn’t make sense to our rational mind.

Last week I worked with a Best Year Coaching client who has the soul goal of moving back to the state she grew up in. She has had a challenging time making connections with people in the state where she currently lives and she desperately misses her friends and family from her hometown. So we created a goal of her being a resident of this particular town where she wants to move. And we set up tangible, specific and measurable actions that will support that goal and get her to be a resident of that town by the first quarter of next year.

Is she scared? You betcha. She has a thriving business where she’s currently living. Moving means that she’ll be letting go of what she perceives as security and she’ll be taking the leap of faith toward what has heart and meaning for her. And yet, when we go for what has heart and meaning (our soul goals) we succeed in ways we can’t even imagine now. Life reaches out to support us in ways we can’t even imagine. I’ve seen it happen over and over in my own life. I’ve seen it happen over and over in the lives of those I work with.

Another woman that I worked with a few days ago spoke of a soul goal of being a mom. And yet she’s scared of taking on the role of motherhood by getting pregnant right now. So she and her husband are going to become foster parents as a way to explore what being a parent will feel like. We put being a foster parent on her Best Year plan. Was she scared when we put it on? Absolutely. Is she willing? Yes. Motherhood is tugging at her heart strings and she wants and needs to explore what that will be like in a way that works best for her.

If you have a soul goal for 2013–and even perhaps one that may seem daunting to fulfill (starting a business, starting a family, getting out of debt, travel for an extended period of time, writing a book, etc), I’m ready to work with you to turn your dreams into reality. This process works if you work it. Prepare to be amazed.

Click to find out more and to create your best 2013 by signing up for the Best Year Coaching Starter Package.

Liana S. is a successful Colorado business woman who owns not one but two businesses: a pet care company and a retail store.

I recently did a “Create Your Best Year Plan” 3-Hour Coaching Session with Liana.

A few days after our session, I emailed her to ask her what the Best Year experience was like for her.

Liana gave me permission to share her answers below:

Kristin: Liana, what inspired you to want to create your Best Year Plan?

Liana: I am at a point in my life where I need to make some major changes in order to get to where I want to be.

Kristin: How would you describe the process of creating your best year plan?

Liana: Inspiring and thoughtful.

Kristin: Were there things that surprised you when you created your Best Year Plan with me? 

Liana: We were able to get to the root of what would really make this year my best year yet, not what I had previously thought of to be the best option.

Kristin’s note: I find this is often the case: Best Year Coaching clients usually have an idea of what make this be their best year before we start the initial session and yet when we do some rooting around during the 3-hour session, the ideas of what would make this their best year often shift to something unexpected and yet so right.

Kristin: Liana, what would you say to others who were thinking of creating their best year plan but hadn’t yet taken the leap?

Liana: Definitely go for it now, now is the perfect time to start!

Kristin: Anything else you’d like to share about the process or your reflections after doing your Best Year Coaching Initial Session?

Liana: Thank you, Kristin!  I can really see how things will come together over the next year now that I have clear goals and a path to take.
 

“The best time to plant an oak tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is NOW.”  -Anonymous

Ready to plant the seed for your Best Year Yet?

I’m offering two 30-minute demo webinars this Tuesday, November 27 to demonstrate the amazing online goal setting/tracking software that I use with my Best Year Coaching clients.

The software + my 3 hour goal planning session will enable you to immediately begin living into your best year ever. 

I’ll be doing a 30-minute demo on Tuesday, November 27 at 3pm PST/6pm EST: 

Click this link at 3pm PST: https://www4.gotomeeting.com/join/378187271

Access Code: 378-187-271    /   Meeting ID: 378-187-271

And I’ll be doing another 30-minute demo at 6pm PST/9pm EST later that same day (Tuesday, November 27):

Click this link at 6pm PST: https://www4.gotomeeting.com/join/764528223

Access Code: 764-528-223    /    Meeting ID: 764-528-223

If you haven’t yet used Go to Meeting, I’d encourage you to click on the link above now in order to download the software (it takes only 2 minutes) so you can dive right in at one of the times above.

Get a taste of what Best Year Coaching is about!

And if you wanted to attend but aren’t able to, no problem. Shoot me an email and I’ll happily send you the replay link so you view the demo at a time that’s convenient for you.

Looking forward to showing you this incredible software that helps you create -and live into- your best life! 

I have ‘technology fasts’ built into my Best Year Plan.

I started putting my tech fasts in my monthly plan at the beginning of the year because I was finding myself on my computer way too much. And I was finding it hard to wind down because of my voracious consumption of computer.

Now I (usually) close my laptop a few hours before bed each night and enjoy my ‘Sacred Sunday’ that is free of technology for most of that day.

It’s delicious.

Here’s how my sacred Sunday works: I will often be online in the morning of my Sacred Sunday and then by 10am off to yoga I go and don’t touch the computer again until Monday morning. Sometimes I don’t drive my car on my Sacred Sunday and will ride my bike to my favorite grocery store for lunch and groceries. It’s heavenly and puts me in the groove of human being again.

Having my technology fast built into my plan reminds me to make it happen.

“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”  -Plato

This morning I woke up to quite a number of signups for the Best Year Coaching Starter Package. It made me downright giddy to think of all the people who are ready to create their best year yet.

Here’s the thing: people don’t sign up for this process unless they are ready to change something (or a whole lot of somethings) in their lives. This work involves shapeshifting. And guess what? Shift happens. This goal setting process is a  tangible, logical-yet-intuitive way to achieve heart’s desires. It’s so cool. You are going to love it.

There are three things I want you to know about me and my relationship to Best Year Coaching:

1. It is a sacred honor for me to be able to do this work. 

2. I don’t take that sacred honor lightly (except when the work requires both of us to lighten up). 

3. I love (add about a hundred ‘loves’) helping people create their best years.

The Initial Coaching session is where it all begins.

And like the wise guy Plato says, “The beginning is the most important part of the work.”

Indeed.

“Do one thing every day that scares you.”  -Eleanor Roosevelt

Ms. Roosevelt may have died long ago (in 1962) but she remains a vivid heroine of mine. She practiced what she preached: she did a lot of things that scared her.

Here are just a few:

She was very shy and yet she became an empowered and eloquent public speaker. She married her 5th cousin (um, hello, that’s scary…what a brave lass) who, as we all know, later became President. She became the first wife of a president to hold all-female press conferences (this in 1933 when women were supposed to be barefoot and hanging out with a spatula and griddle -and a girdle- in the kitchen). She kicked some bootie, this one.

Because she was willing to go to places that scared her.

I’m finding the more I say a big and hearty YES (and sometimes even a timid and tiny yes will do) to the things that scare me is where my life really expands exponentially. Colors become more vivid. My pulse gets stronger and more steady. My heart begins to beat in time with those who are on a similar journey–to create a life beyond our wildest dreams.

Go get ’em, tiger. Be willing to stretch today to go beyond your comfort zone.

Well, here I am in the Las Vegas airport awaiting my return flight back to San Francisco.

This morning I spoke at a business conference in Las Vegas on how to set and achieve business and life goals. It was fun to connect with business owners who want to step powerfully into 2013 with solid goals in place; goals that are in alignment with who they truly are and what they deeply want to create.

I am in the habit of scoring and setting up my next week’s Best Year Yet! goals on Mondays and even though I’m at the airport right now and it’s Monday, today is no different. One of the things I love about the Best Year Yet system (among many) is that this goal setting software is so portable.

So, even though I’m en route from Las Vegas back home to Marin County, I just scored last week’s goals and have set my goals for this next week. At the airport. I love it.

Some of my Best Year Yet! coaching clients score their goals monthly and forget to score or create their weekly goals. I find that scoring my goals on a regular, ongoing weekly basis keeps me on track. It only takes perhaps 15 minutes to score + set up my weekly goals and yet the benefits gained from that 15 minutes are enormous. When I review my weekly plan and create the plan for the week ahead I’ve then created the map for what I most want to accomplish/create/manifest in the next week. It’s easy!

I also find that my coaching clients who score their Best Year Yet goals on a regular, ongoing weekly basis create an even more incredible life with more tangible accomplishments and victories than those who only score monthly.

See how this works for you.  I’ve experienced first hand the results of scoring my goals weekly and have seen the massive benefits in the lives of my coaching clients who score and plan their goals on a weekly basis too.

🙂

I love the new logo for Best Year Coaching!

Here’s a little background about the logo since I get a lot of questions from coaching clients about how the Best Year Coaching logo came to be:

I knew I wanted the sense of freedom, ease, joy and living a ‘technicolor life’ to be a part of the logo because those are the elements, among many, that I’ve personally experienced in my own best year creations.

I wanted a tree because they are rooted (grounded), yet the leaves and branches are flexible and sway with the wind. This grounded, flexible quality is something I wanted portrayed in my logo because when I am grounded and flexible I find I am living from my most potent place and most easily able to step fully and powerfully into my best year.

Our best years are often waiting for us to be available to them, to step in and say a big and hearty YES to them in a grounded and flexible way. Grounded to me means taking actions needed to create my best year. Flexibility is being able to bend and not get broken by the twists and turns of life.

There is a certain amount of surrender involved in being flexible and that’s why I wanted the tree/person image to be open and receptive. And from the sweet spot of being grounded, flexible, surrendered, combined with conscious intention and action through working the Best Year Yet!® plan, we begin to grow, shift and change. Our lives are then lived in full, vivid color with all our energy available to step powerful into our best year.

So…that’s a snapshot of how the Best Year Coaching logo came to be. I look forward to helping you create your own technicolor life!