A New Year… a New You… New Life…
By Greg Dalton.
It's never too late to restart your resolutions...
Here’s a new approach to New Years Resolutions…GIVE UP making those New Year’s resolutions.
If you’re thinking about making a New Years resolution or resolutions, think again… 94% of New Years resolutions fail by the end of the first week of January!
The New Year, a great opportunity for productive change, to change the things we’ve been meaning to change for the past number of months. We do it every year, we set out new goals and resolutions, come up with all sorts of wonderful ideas, yet we seem to always let ourselves down when we’ve just about succeeded.
Every year most of us manage to trouble ourselves with commitments to ourselves to improve something. Lose weight, get physically fit, stop smoking, fix a relationship, or make more money and so on.
What are your New Year’s resolutions this year?
- Lose weight
- Stop Smoking
- Set up and stick to a budget
- Save or earn more money
- Find a better job/new career
- Become more organised
- Exercise more
- Be more patient at work/with others
- Eat better
- Become a better person
For you to succeed with your new years resolutions you must make them realistic and achievable. The most common reason people’s resolutions fail is because they make them unrealistic. They make a great start, and then fade away into oblivion.
Use Accountability… Set yourself easy (yet challenging) goals and targets. Write them down as daily targets. Rather than saying I’m giving up smoking for good. Become a non-smoker for a single day, tomorrow. Then every night after that write it down again, and again. Do it consecutively for 28 days and it’s become habitual. Think about this, it takes 28 days to create a habit and 27 to break one.
If you become a habitual ‘non-smoker’ after 28 days you’ve cracked it. Your new habit is ‘non-smoking’!
Tell someone close to you, your partner, or a colleague, in fact tell them all. It’ll be much harder to fail if you have someone watching you.
Make sure that your resolution is realistic. If you want to run the marathon this year and you haven’t exercised for years, change the goal; go for the mini marathon first. If you haven’t exercised for years you’ll be delighted with your progress and will feel much better after completing the mini marathon. You might even be inspired to go for the marathon next year.
Common mistakes…
One of the most common reasons why we fail is that we set to high a standard of goal(s). We don’t make them achievable for ourselves. Typically, fad diets are an example of this… ‘Loose 14lbs in 14 days’ or something as crazy as this. And if we go on this ludicrous diet and only loose 8lbs in 14 days we think we’ve failed! Where as loosing 8lbs in 2 weeks is not only a mammoth achievement, but can be dangerous to your health.
We all know that loosing weight slowly over a longer period of time is not only the safest but the most productive. Simply change the rules of the goal, ‘Loose 14lbs in 14 weeks’ the goal is the same, but you now are more likely to achieve your goal because you have made it realistic within the time frame you are allowing yourself.
So let’s do something a little different this year, lets make a new resolution to give up failing New Year resolutions. Let us now set ourselves up for success by committing to make a decision to change what we want to change about ourselves. And we’re going to do it as a spring clean on our lives. We are not going to try to do it, because we have made a decision, not to try anymore but to decide either YES or NO.
Last month we spoke about negative words which give us the opportunity of failure, for example the word ‘TRY’. When we use the word
Focus on the positive, focus on the things we want to achieve and can achieve. Focus on persisting with your goal until you have achieved it. Make success a habit, wouldn’t you rather be habitually successful? It’s up to you, you can do it, make the decision. Look at the obstacles that were in your way. See what you can do differently the next time and figure out a new plan to succeed.
If you want to succeed, be reasonable with yourself!
Here are some realistic, achievable ideas for helping you in your resolutions for the coming year:
New Year's Eve has always been a time for looking back to the past, and in my opinion, far more importantly, looking forward to the coming year. The only thing we can do with the past is ‘learn from it’ we cannot change it. This month of December, take the time to reflect on the changes you want (or need) to make and decide to follow through on those changes. It doesn’t matter if you are one day, one week or month into the New Year, you can still start today! This is still a new year until next year.
1. Clarity of the goal.
For a dream to become a goal, it must be S.M.A.R.T. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic & Time Related.
2. Commitment.
Once your goal is clear, emotionally commit to achieving it.
3. Talk about it.
This is called "accountability." Make yourself accountable to your goals and resolutions.
4. Write it down.
This is basic, and one of the oldest, simplest and most powerful techniques for achieving any goal. Write it down!
5. Write it every day!
Every morning or every night, use a small card or a corner of your diary to record what you’ve just achieved
6. Have a plan.
Create your strategic plan for getting there, put dates on it!
7. Take action every day!
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
8. Use constant affirmations.
A professional golfer, from the moment his ball lands on the green until he sinks the putt, he repeats over and over "I will make this putt!"
9. Review, and re-commit, often.
Never be afraid to review your goals, evaluate whether you are still 100% committed to them, and re-commit to achieving them.
10. Celebrate each achievement
Never wait to celebrate! Each day without a cigarette deserves a smile and congratulations from your loved ones. Every step toward your goal should be documented and celebrated!
Should you get discouraged or have doubts, your record of past successes will quickly get you back on track. Not sure about this? Ask any marathon runner whether they count each mile on their run to the finish line!
Take your past failed New Year resolutions, redesign them into positive change for focus on you. There is nothing we can do about the past except learn from it. Use this as an opportunity to learn where, what or why it went wrong for you the last time. Redesign your goal where it can be achieved.
January 2011
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