At Consilio we have found This Year I Will... by M.J. Ryan to be an easy read and also very helpful for our clients. It is a self coaching tool that focuses on changing habits, making goals, and keeping a vision of what is truly important in the forefront of your mind. We use two exercises from the book with our clients that help them support their change in habit or new goal.

The first exercise is very simple. Write on a small piece of paper (business card size is best), "2008 is the Year of ________________." Then fill in the blank with one or two words. Keep it somewhere you will see it every day! Your word might be ultimate health, balance, financial freedom or focus. It's what you seriously want to work on, because you can't work on everything at once. Have smaller ideas in mind for how you are going to make this year all about your goal.

The other exercise we use is "Your Future's Calling...". In this exercise you write a letter to your current self from your future self describing what your life is like after achieving your goal. You can give your current self encouragement, congratulate yourself and thank yourself for all your hard work and dedication in achieving the goal. We encourage clients to write freely and positively and be specific. "You have three new bathing suits and you love to wear them to the pool to show them off." We find it to be very inspiring and powerful because it comes from within, but at the same time, it takes you to a new, very happy place. It really is like reading a letter from someone else, and that person is the most fabulous person imaginable. It's you!