“Every year I make a list of New Year’s resolutions, and by the end of January I can’t even remember what was on my list.”

“I have this great idea for a book, but I never get around to putting it down on paper.”
“Just when I start moving towards my goals I seem to hit this wall.”

Sound familiar? If you could “just do it” you probably would have done it. If you’re strong on ideas, but perpetually stuck at the starting line, the following tips will help.

Be specific about what you want

Change “I want more money,” to “I want to earn $60,000 by December 31, 2004.” Revamp “I want to write someday,” to “I want to write forty pages by August.”

Keep your goals simple. Too many goals are overwhelming, a good excuse for doing nothing at all.

Be suspicious of your failures

There’s an old saying that people vote with their feet. It means we are exactly where we want to be no matter how much we complain.

Be suspect of any goal you’ve had for more than five years and haven’t achieved. One man spent more than seven years trying to finish his MBA, dropping classes, taking extensions on papers, only to discover that he really didn’t want the degree at all.

When you’re doing what’s close to your heart, it’s easy. Work with your nature. Be suspect of anything that seems too difficult. People find it easier to blame themselves for laziness than to admit that it’s a difficult process to face up to who we really are and what we really want. It feels lonely to admit that we might be different from others, that your goals aren’t the same as theirs. Your failures might be your way of protecting yourself from becoming what you never really wanted to be.

What’s your current goal? Why do you want it so badly? Write two paragraphs answering these questions. Then convince a friend. Notice any possible resistance coming up. Ask yourself again “Is this what I really want?”

Recognize your fear

Fear is a common response to risk and responsibility. The most common fears are fear of failure, fear of success or fear of abandonment.

The fear of failure indicates you may need to re-examine past disappointments. Talking them out in a supportive setting can release them.

A fear of success can often reflect an expectation of rising expectations–“If I achieve this, people will want more and more from me and I’ll never be able to give them what they want.”

Some of us have fears, often unconscious, of surpassing a parent with our success. A fear of abandonment reflects a belief that success will be connected with disapproval and loss of relationships.

Are you “demand-resistant”?

Therapists define demand-resistance as having a chronic negative response to obligations or expectations. This is often unconsious. The person who suffers will make daily lists of things to do, then grow angry and anxious when it’s time to get moving. Unconsciously, he or she resents anything that smacks of being “told what to do.”

In some cases, even returning a phone call, or asking a friend to dinner is resented because it’s “expected”. Pleasurable activities, such as working out at a health club, or taking a class in Italian cooking, become “shoulds” to be done perfectly or on a rigid schedule. Work is a burden, and creativity and energy is blocked.

If you suffer from demand-resistance, you constantly find that you set goals and sabotage them. You are always angry at yourself, continually resolving to set goals and stick to them.

The antidote is to keep asking yourself, “Is this what I really want?” Demand-resistance is often a childhood response to overly controlling or overly protective parents. As an adult, such a person always feels vulnerable to being overrun.

The more sure you are of yourself, the more you work on building a strong sense of who you are, the less you’ll feel like resisting your goals just to prove a point.

Create momentum

Write down your action steps with a dateline for completion. Suppose your goal is writing a screenplay. Your first action step can be something as simple as buying a how-to book. Your next step might be writing your idea for a movie out in one sentence.

Having one hundred small steps to one large goal isn’t unrealistic. Build in incentives. Reward yourself for the completion of each action step.

Gather support

Let people know what you are trying to do. Don’t minimize the importance of support and reassurance along the way to any goal you set.

Celebrate

Small successes lend the strength for bigger ones. Positive reinforcement can do more to reshape you patterns than self-criticism.