As we come to the end of the year, everyone is thinking about making New Year’s resolutions. We often make a long list of resolutions, then give up on all of them by the end of January. There are lots of reasons that New Year’s resolutions fail. We take on too many changes at once, we get frustrated when we don’t see immediate results, we choose the wrong resolutions…and on and on.
Do you want to make resolutions you will keep? In this series, I will walk you through a way of making resolutions that will stick. In today’s article we will look at making resolutions. Next you will learn how to keep your resolutions.
Let’s get started!
If you are like most people, your list of New Year’s resolutions may look something like this:
- Make more money.
- Lose weight.
- Spend more time with my kids.
- Get more things done.
- Be happier.
One issue with these resolutions is that they are vague. How much more money do you want to make? What does “be happier” mean anyway? But the biggest problem with them is that they are not action oriented. These are things you want, not things you will DO.
Resolutions are about DOING.
What actions will you take that will cause you to make more money? What new habits will you develop to lose weight? What are you going to do in that time with your kids? What activities are you going to delegate or dump to use your time more effectively? How will you change your attitude to become happier?
For each of the original resolutions, determine at least one thing you are going to DO. So now your list might be something like this:
- Hold one teleseminar every month.
- Walk at least 10,000 steps a day.
- Have a family game night every Tuesday.
- Outsource the maintenance of my website and blog.
- Maintain a daily gratitude journal.
You may have more than one action for each desired result, but don’t get carried away. You want to be ambitious, but you do not want to overwhelm yourself. Focus on the most important action(s) for each goal. You can always add more later.
Next we will look at how you are going to keep your new resolutions, even if you have never been able to follow through on New Year’s resolutions in the past.
