If you're like most people, you've probably experienced the sudden burst of motivation that comes in early January. "This is the year," so the resolution goes, "that I vow to lose the pounds and keep it off."
Sadly, New Year's resolutions are notoriously short-lived, if not completely forgotten by February. The trick to make resolutions work is to follow the same steps required to make any goal work, as follows:
1. Choose the Right Resolution
For all too many resolutions, failure is virtually assured at the offset because the resolutions are not made with serious intent and deliberation. The first trick is to choose the right resolution, for the right reasons.
Give some thought to what you really want and why you want it. What direct benefits do you hope to receive? Is a weight-loss resolution meant to improve your self-esteem? Attractiveness? Vitality? Longevity? Identifying the "why" helps you avoid setting goals for the wrong reasons.
Next, decide how difficult to make your resolution. Aiming high generally makes people try harder. Optimal performance comes from goals that are difficult, but not so difficult that we don't believe they can be accomplished.
Finally, be specific about your resolution and make it official. Being specific means phrasing the goal in words that make it obvious whether the goal has been completed, by a specific date.
2. Create a Plan
Most resolutions fail because people stop once they've made the resolution. It is crucial to harness New Year's temporary motivation into something that will carry you through an extended period of required effort.
Upon clarifying the exact goal that you are settling, next create a plan for how you intend to accomplish your goal. With any reasonably good plan, you are fairly likely to make significant progress or actually accomplish your goal.
3. Stay on Track
With a good plan in hand, making significant progress towards your goal may require very little discipline for those who live strictly by daily planners and love nothing more than checking off items on our to-do lists.
4. Remain Flexible and Keep on Going
A recent realization among goal-setting experts is the need to continually modify our approach-sometimes even changing or abandoning a goal altogether. It is therefore best to periodically re-evaluate our goals and plans, perhaps once per quarter for a year-long goal such as a New Year's resolution. First, make certain that the goal itself still exactly reflects what you want to do. If it's not, adjust it. Next, go through your plan and identify any portions that aren't working well, even i f it simply means giving yourself more time to complete a particular task or milestone. Keep in mind that missed due dates do not necessarily indicate a problem with your performance; it simply means that your plan was too aggressive, or that your environment has changed in some unexpected fashion.
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