How to Make a New Year's Resolution You'll Keep
Your Guide to Making and Achieving New Year's Resolutions
A New Year's resolution is simply a commitment to change certain habits/behaviors into more positive and productive ones. According to Dictionary.com a resolution is defined as a firmness of purpose; a resolve or determination; making a firm resolution to do something
Making a Resolution You’ll Want To Keep
It’s not difficult to take out pen and paper or sit at the computer and write a New Year's resolution. Come May or June though, keeping the January 1st excitement, resolve and determination can often seem like a distant and long forgotten memory.
So, how do you keep yourself motivated and on track for turning New Year's resolutions into reality? Here are a few practical and easy success strategies for achieving your goals:
1. Decide on one or two habits or behaviors you’d like to change for the positive. Start by making a list of 10 things you’d like to change during this coming year. Some of the most popular ones are weight management, reducing stress at home or at work, eating healthier, getting fit, learning new skills for professional and personal self-development, saving money, getting out of debt.
2. Give each item on your list an importance value. The most important item will become number one. Study the top five items on your list and evaluate their importance to you and your future. Look carefully at your first and second choices. If you chose to achieve the first two items on your list, how will your life change for the better? The most important one or two items should become your New Year's resolutions. Here's a rule of thumb:One or two resolutions are achievable, more than that can become overwhelming.
3. Write your New Year's resolution in a positive and present tense sentence. Example: "I, Mary Jones, plan my meals one week in advance making sure they are nutritious, healthy and enjoyable. I am trim, fit and physically healthy."
4. Write an emotional and powerful "why" for wanting to achieve your resolution. One of the most important things you can do is write out in as much detail as possible your reason for wanting to change an old habit into a new one. Your "why"for achieving the resolution must be so powerful and motivational that not achieving it isn’t an option.
5. Write a simple, realistic and viable plan for success. Break this plan into bite-sized pieces. Are you willing to commit time, energy and money into doing the daily, weekly and monthly tasks that will ensure your resolution becomes reality?
6. Is there someone supportive you can work with on this success journey? Can you share your resolution with a support group, friend or professional networking group? It’s easier to achieve success when you don’t feel as if you have to go it alone.
7. Acknowledge the successes and reward yourself each step along the way. Pat yourself on the back for achieving the little things. Most often it's those little things that can make the biggest difference toward day-to-day successes.
The Key to New Year's Resolution Success
Realistically, whether you actually achieve your New Year's resolutions will depend largely on how committed you are to making positive changes. It's not always going to easy but with effort and an unstoppable commitment you can change negative habits/behaviors into more positive ones.
"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day." Edith Lovejoy Pierce
New Year's Resolutions
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