It’s that time of year when everyone is making New Year’s Resolutions. Many focus on exercising more, eating healthier, and spending more time with family and friends. However, many people won’t make resolutions because they fear they won’t be able to keep them. For those people, I also recommend not making New Year Resolutions if:
- You are setting specific goals. Specific goals are often difficult to quickly achieve. The result is that people get frustrated and lose motivation. Instead of “Lose 15 pounds”, a better resolution might be “Eat healthier”. This broader goal is easier to follow and you can continuously get small easy “wins” that give you motivation to stay with it.
- If you aren’t willing to change your resolutions. Your family circumstances may change, your financial circumstances may change, or your emotional state may change. You have to willing to recalibrate what you want to achieve, when you’re going to achieve it, and how you are going to achieve it.
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If you don’t have a support group aground you. No one ever achieves anything without a team around them. Tell three other people (and family members don’t account) who can hold you accountable. These people may be able to help you achieve your goals.
- Don’t make time to review them each day. Resolutions are not kept and goals are not achieved by simply writing them down once. Like habits, you have to focus on them each and every day to stay on course.
- You are already under a lot of stress and pressure. If you have personal or financial problems you are dealing with, don’t create more pressure by making more obligations for yourself. Consider taking January, February and March off, and revisit making resolutions in April.
- You don’t have a process to help you keep your resolutions. Resolutions are not kept/met organically. Make sure you have a process you follow each and every day that will allow you to achieve them. More importantly, a process will allow you to keep making new goals and achieving them.
If all, some or even a few of these apply to you, it’s okay. Don’t make resolutions. Instead consider having a Theme for the year. For instance, if you are considering going into business, the word Risk might be a great theme. If you want to give bcsk to their community, the simple word Service might be a great theme.
Why This Matters – We shouldn’t we feel obligated to make New Year Resolutions. Sometimes it’s just not in the cards. However, even you don’t want to make specific resolutions,
Now Do This – If you haven’t yet made your New Year’s Resolutions, I hope these six ideas will help you. If you’ve already made your Resolutions, I hope these six ideas can help you improve the likelihood of success.
