Your New Year Resolutions,

How are you Doing?

So how are the New Years Resolutions going?

A new year, a new start – many of us reflect on our life over the previous year and decide to make some changes as they move into a new year. As we progress into the January, we get busy, and can easily start to lose focus and our good intentions get weaker and weaker until we give up.

This article looks at three reasons New Year Resolutions fail, and what you can do about it.

There is nothing wrong with having big goals and aiming high. However if there seems to be a huge gap between where you are and where you want to be, it is easy to become discouraged and give up.

Goals are rarely achieved without planning. It is very important to break down your big goal into smaller steps. Create a road map of how you are going to get there. Be Real! You are doing this for yourself, and no one knows you better than you do!

Ask yourself these questions:

      What can I realistically achieve in one month?

      What can I realistically achieve by this time next week?

      What can I do by this time tomorrow to take a step towards my goal?

Make a commitment you think is practical, and then review it afterwards and see how well you did. If you need to make adjustments to your plans do it so it becomes achievable.

Again let’s get real! None of us are perfect, and we will make mistakes, fail to meet our commitment to completing what we say we will accomplish by our deadline.

Guilt can be powerful and can convince you that you are a no good person, can not meet your goal and you might as well give up.

It is important to get the balance between having a healthy response to guilt and giving up completely.

People who have the most success in achieving their goals are those who build in some outside accountability. This could range from writing goals down in a place where you will frequently see them to giving permission to someone else to keep you on task. Certainly writing goals down does give you more power to achieve them, especially if you look at them every day. It is even more effective to tell another person that you will have done the next step towards your long term goal by a short timeframe, and then report back to them. Remember to create realistic, measurable and specific goals.

Having someone to report back to can also help with the guilt factor as they can bring an outside perspective and practically give suggestions to help you on your way.

People don’t make New Year Resolutions with any thought of failing at the time. They feel highly motivated, inspired and ready to make the changes. Time and life are the main factors that cause that inspiration and motivation to lose its power. We lose the excitement of the big picture, and tend to make choices based on our needs and moods of the moment.

The bottom line is you really need to want something badly to make lifestyle changes.  Choices are at the end of the day usually self serving. You do want is in your heart to do. If your New Years Resolution is to quit smoking, then for you to succeed, your desire to stop smoking needs to be stronger than your desire to have a cigarette at that moment of temptation.

Motivation needs to be fed daily, or even on an hourly basis. It’s like washing your hands, they need to be washed regularly to maintain cleanliness. What motivates you?

We all are different, but here a few suggestions:

           Visualization – focus on picturing yourself as having succeeded at your goal and all the benefits that you would experience.

           Reminders - frequently remind yourself of your goal, by pictures, notes -  whatever works well for you.

           Keep company with like minded people – we become like the people we spend time with

           Set up an accountability system

           Reward yourself for small achievements towards your New Years Resolution

I wish you every success in achieving your New Year's Resolutions.