Unlock the transformative power of dedication as we explore the essential steps to achieving steadfast commitment to your personal goals. This episode is a treasure trove for anyone looking to enhance their mental, physical, financial, or relational health. It delves into the significance of clarity of purpose, unwavering commitment, and the might of consistency, equipping you with actionable strategies to fortify your dedication. Join us on this journey and discover how creating vision boards and prioritizing commitments can serve as your compass to staying true to your objectives.
As we navigate the challenges of maintaining dedication, we share personal insights on the importance of understanding the 'why' behind your goals and the impact of that knowledge on your persistence. Whether you're aiming to stick to that early morning gym routine or pushing through the slow and sometimes frustrating progress toward your dreams, this episode is your ally. Learn to stay the course, embrace the ups and downs, and remain steadfast in your pursuit of success. Tune in and let's transform dedication from an abstract concept into a lived, empowering reality.
Unlock the transformative power of dedication as we explore the essential steps to achieving steadfast commitment to your personal goals. This episode is a treasure trove for anyone looking to enhance their mental, physical, financial, or relational health. It delves into the significance of clarity of purpose, unwavering commitment, and the might of consistency, equipping you with actionable strategies to fortify your dedication. Join us on this journey and discover how creating vision boards and prioritizing commitments can serve as your compass to staying true to your objectives.
As we navigate the challenges of maintaining dedication, we share personal insights on the importance of understanding the 'why' behind your goals and the impact of that knowledge on your persistence. Whether you're aiming to stick to that early morning gym routine or pushing through the slow and sometimes frustrating progress toward your dreams, this episode is your ally. Learn to stay the course, embrace the ups and downs, and remain steadfast in your pursuit of success. Tune in and let's transform dedication from an abstract concept into a lived, empowering reality.
Welcome back everyone. It's Lashana. Alfred, I am your facilitator for today and I just want to say thank you for tuning in to the self-care podcast. Just to recap, on, the last time that I was on, I gave you the word determination. Hopefully you were able to really reflect on the information that I shared when I was talking to you about the determination, dedication, desire, the process or the steps to change.
Speaker 1:This week, I want to talk to you about dedication. Again, we talked about determination, being determined to reach whatever goal that you set up for yourself. Once you set a goal because how many of you have set new year's resolutions and before the 15th of January, we already broke it or all focus. When we're looking at changes, desire, changes that we have in our lives and desire is actually another D word but those desire, changes that we want for ourselves in our lives we want to really be clear and focused being dedicated to my mental health, being dedicated to my physical health, my financial health, my relational health. When we're looking at dedication, dedication is crucial for achieving any long-term goal, any long-term goal. Remember, once you set the desired state and you're committed, you're determined to reach that particular goal, then you have to be dedicated. I want to share with you a few steps that will help you achieve this aspect of it, or at least cultivate some level of dedication in your life.
Speaker 1:The first one is clarity of purpose. Clarity of purpose you want to clearly define your goal, and not just define your goal, but the reason behind your goal. If you say your goal is to lose 10 pounds, what is the reason behind it? Is it just because you just want to lose 10 pounds, because it seemed like that's the end thing to do, or you just really don't want to carry all the weight? Or is it like wait, hold on? My doctor told me if I don't lose 10 pounds, I may die. What is the reason behind this particular goal? If it's an attitude change, it's like okay, wait, why do I want to change it? What is the reason? Well, because I don't like feeling frustrated all the time. I don't like how it's showing up in my children or in my relationships. So, on this journey, you want to have clarity of purpose and you want to clearly define your goals. That's what we do to vision boards and you want to really think about the reason behind the goal.
Speaker 1:The next one is commitment. You want to make a sincere commitment to pursue your goal, a sincere commitment to pursue your goal, and you cannot be wavering, you cannot be thinking like, oh, that's a good idea, but you want to really be serious about it, because if we're not serious about the goal that we're trying to achieve, we're not going to be committed. We're going to start, stop, start, stop and so on this journey right to positive change and seeing different things happen in our lives. Yes, we have to be determined, we have to be dedicated, right, and so now I'm giving you the steps of how to cultivate dedication in your life. So the first one, again, is clarity of purpose, being real, clear. Define your goals, really clear, and then ask yourself what is the reason behind this goal? You want to be committed, make a sincere commitment to pursue the goal with unwavering dedication. Right Meaning set some time. If I set time that I'm going to be at the gym at 6 am, right, ok, I'm committed to that, I'm dedicated to that, and so that means no one should be calling me or asking me to do anything at 6 am, because I will be at the gym.
Speaker 1:The third thing is consistency. Stay consistent in your effort. How about this? Even when you're faced with challenges. How many times do we start something and then something happened, we get a negative report or we get frustrated about something. We're not seeing the growths or progress fast enough, then we just waver. The third step is consistency. You want to stay consistent in your efforts, even when you're faced with challenges. This is going to be really big when people aren't talking about health issues getting into the gym because the weight don't drop as fast as we would like it to. But at the end of the day, we can't continue to do something, be consistent in something, and not eventually see some results. Sometimes we may see it quicker than others, but at the end of the day we want to make sure we're consistent in our efforts.
Speaker 1:The fourth one is resilience Developing resilience, develop resistance to bounce back from setbacks and learn from them. Learn from them. Time management is another one. As you begin to look at where am I looking at? What has gotten in the way of me reaching my goal? What has gotten in the way of that? Have I allowed myself to be discouraged? Have I allowed myself to cheat on myself, to write, sleep on myself? What has gotten in the way in the past? How can I make some positive changes, so I'm not being interrupted in my pursuit of positive change. So, resilience, develop resilience to bounce back from setbacks and learn from them. The fifth one is time management. Effectively manage your time to prioritize tasks related to your goals. Effectively manage your time to prioritize tasks related to your goals. So, again, we don't want to be walking haphazardly thinking things are just going to change. We again want to have clear goals, clear purpose, and then we want to prioritize our time to make it happen. Because if we don't prioritize our time that's going to help us reach our goal, someone else will come in and put what their goal is in that space. So you literally want to make sure you prioritize your time.
Speaker 1:Number six is focus, concentrate on the task at hand and avoid distractions. Focus, concentrate on the task at hand and avoid distractions, whatever your goal is. If you're saying I want a mindset shift, that means you got a set of time where you're going to learn, you're going to write, you're going to put some things down that you're going to then walk throughout your day focusing on. If I'm saying I want a mindset shift, I'm going to read up on things that's going to help me shift my mindset. Then, when I'm at work, when I'm working with my family, friends or whatever, I'm going to be more self-conscious and self-aware. Now I understand. Wait, I no longer want to respond like this. Number six, it's focus.
Speaker 1:Number seven is adaptability. Be open to adjusting your approach. Just because one thing didn't seem to work, it don't mean we throw everything away. You have to be adaptable. You got to adapt, you got to assess. This is why we sit down and we assess our progress and see what's working and what's not. We have to be open to adjusting our approach while staying dedicated to the end goal.
Speaker 1:If I plan on going to, just say, north Carolina, and if that's a 10, 12-hour drive and something happened with the flight, I'm not going to really say, you know what, I'm just not going to North Carolina. No, I'm going to check out rental cars, other modes of transportation to get me there, because I really need to get to North Carolina. Well, watch the mindset. If I just would like to go to North Carolina and the flight is messed up or they're delaying the flights or whatever, then I'll just say you know what? Okay, I'm not really good, I don't have to really go, I'll just wait, but when I know I need to be there. That's a determined destination that I need to be. I'm dedicated to getting there March 12th. That means I'm going to adjust. I'm going to adjust whatever. Maybe I thought I was going to fly, but if the flight didn't adjust or wasn't available, then guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to drive because of my commitment, my dedication to getting to North Carolina March 12th. Now see what I'm getting at. I'm going to go over and do a recap because I really want you to grab hold of this On this journey of self-care and producing positive change in our own lives.
Speaker 1:Again, last episode, I talked about determination. This one is about dedication. The first step to help you cultivate a life of dedication is clarity of purpose. That's number one, clarity of purpose. You want to clearly define your goal, just like I did. I wanted I need to be in North Carolina. Notice that I didn't say I want to be in North Carolina one day. No, I said I need to be in North Carolina March 12th. Then I have to ask myself what's the reason behind it? When you're doing this clarity of purpose, you want to clearly define your goal and then the reason behind it why do? I want to change Because the way I am now is no longer serving me, because I'm hurting not just myself but the other people that I love. This step one is very important because you're going to need it when the trials of life come storming in your life. Number two is commitment. Make a sincere commitment to pursue your goals with unwavering dedication. Unwavering dedication I need to get to North Carolina March 12th because my cousin needs me. Unwavering dedication, so I'm dedicated to getting there. Meaning, whatever distractions that come, I am so committed to moving through them, overcoming them, so I can make sure I reach my destination March 12.
Speaker 1:Number three consistency. Stay consistent in your efforts, even when faced with challenges. Stay consistent in your efforts, even when faced with challenges. This is very important, but check this out If the number one is not met, number three will wipe you out, because if your purpose is not clear when you're faced with challenges, you're not going to be consistent. So again, three is consistency. Stay consistent in your efforts, even when faced with challenges.
Speaker 1:Number four resilience. Develop resilience to bounce back from setbacks and learn from them. So check this out we will have setbacks. I was about to say may, but no, we will have setbacks. That is even a challenge that needs to be overcame, because sometimes we have setbacks and then we throw in the towel and we get frustrated and we close the book to our goals. But in this number four resilience you want to develop resilience to bounce back from setbacks and you're going to learn from them. But again it takes me back to clarity of purpose, because if I'm not clear what a personal reason for why I want this particular goal is going to be hard for me to be resilient. It's going to be hard for me to bounce back. Okay, so number four is resilience.
Speaker 1:Number five is time management Effectively manage your time to prioritize tasks related to your goal. Time management Put it on your schedule. Put you on your schedule. I share with individuals in the self-care group. These self-care groups, monday through Thursday. You want to put one day on your schedule, if not two. Put one day on your schedule. So you know, at 10 am on Tuesday I'm going to be in my self-care group. I'm turning my phone off. I'm not scheduling no other appointments because this is my time for me. So, time management Effectively manage your time to prioritize tasks related to your goals. Those self-care groups are all related to any goal. That's about you taking care of yourself.
Speaker 1:Okay, number six focus. Concentrate on the task at hand and avoid distractions. All the things that I do, I teach at the University of Toledo. I have my own private practice and expanded behavioral health organization. I have a family, I do the self-care groups, I do seminars, trainings and all of that. But when I'm on my self-care groups at 10 am on Tuesday and Thursday, I have singleness of focus. I'm not distracted by things that's going on at home, things at the university. I'm focused on that self-care group for that hour. Concentrate on the task at hand and avoid distractions. That's number six. And number seven adaptability.
Speaker 1:Be open to adjusting your approach while staying dedicated to the end goal. Realizing there's more than one way to reach a particular goal. Okay, there's more than one way to reach a particular goal. So be open to adjusting your approach while staying dedicated to the end goal. So I hope something will help you and I hope that you will be able to do that and I hope that you will be able to do that. So I hope something was shared. Hopefully you got an opportunity to write it down. If you did not go back, hit replay and again, be dedicated to these podcasts. Be dedicated, you know, to the self-care. Be dedicated to the steps that shared in order for you to reach your goal. Again, I'm Leshiana Alfred. Thank you for tuning in to the self-care podcast. Talk with you soon.