Motivation for Goals: Are You Full of Good Intentions?

December and January can often be months which provide valuable opportunities for reflection and time to evaluate the direction in which our life is heading. The long holiday period can provide a natural break in which to assess what's been achieved during the previous twelve months and give time to start planning for the coming New Year.

We may start January full of good intentions but it's not uncommon to soon fall back into old habits, especially if some of our plans fall by the wayside. Then we can end up berating ourselves, feeling a failure and becoming disappointed at our lack of progress.

5 Reasons Failure Is OK

We've all seen it during our school days. The giant red F at the top of the page of homework, or a test. Even if you went through school with a 4.0 (you perfectionist, you) you probably have had nightmares about how soul-crushing it would be to get one. I got one F during my entire academic career (math test), and I remember exactly what it looked like, and its position on the page. It's seared into my memory, because of what it stood for: failure. Of course, the really insidious thing about failure is it causes another F - fear. Fear is like a decease, crippling and devastating if allowed to run rampant in the human frame. So, to avoid fear, we should do everything we can to avoid failure, right?

Wrong. I think we need to embrace failure. Failure's ok, and I'll tell you why.