I guess for many people the “New Year” brings a renewed sense of hope, optimism and opportunity and provides a chance to re-focus on personal and business goals. Every year we make resolutions, and one of the resolutions will be – to not break the other resolutions.
And each year, we follow the same cycle of making resolute resolutions that last but a few weeks. It starts with great enthusiasm, but soon fades out like the fizz out of a Coke bottle – flat and flavorless. I recently came across this saying, “people are so worried about what they eat between Christmas and the New Year, but they really should be worried about what they eat between the New Year and Christmas.”
Typically, most New Year resolutions revolve around weight loss, exercise, stopping bad habits, cultivating a good character, better money management and the like.. I have spent hours making new year resolutions, which I genuinely thought were achievable, but my New Year resolutions lived up to its true nature –broken in a matter of few weeks. Research has shown that 75% of resolutions that are made go past the first week, while only 46% last after 6 months.
Well, it’s not all dreary news. It has been seen that people who make resolutions are ten times more likely to attain their goals than those who do not. Talking about goals, every year end, at my organization we put down our goals for the next year. We treat this session with paramount importance, we have accountability partners with whom we review goals achieved every quarter, and we have seen that doing this has helped each one of us stick to the goals we have made.
One might think sticking to goals is easier said than done, especially after reading this letter written by an anonymous person. It goes.
Dear God,
So far this year I’ve done well. I haven’t gossiped, I haven’t lost my temper; I haven’t been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or overindulgent. I’m very thankful for that. But in a few minutes, God, I’m going to get out of bed, and from then on I’m probably going to need a lot more help.
Here are a few tips that I would like to share to help you see your resolutions through:
- Make a list of resolutions that are realistic and achievable. You do not want a list of resolutions that the very thought would leave you with a sense of failure Any progress is still progress. Ensure what you have decided on is achievable and gives you a sense of possibility rather than a sense of impossibility. Not like I will quit smoking from 01 January onwards, rather say I will cut back on 3 cigarettes a day for the first quarter, 6 cigarettes for the second quarter and for the third quarter I will be down to only 1 cigarette a day and by the fourth quarter I will be free from this bad habit.
- Have someone hold you accountable. Do not choose someone who is facing the same challenge that you are facing, however find someone who has overcome the challenge. This way they will be able to relate with you and share their experiences.
- Reward yourself for progress. Set yourself rewards for accomplishing or making progress on your resolutions. It is important that you reinforce positive behavior/actions. This way the outcome of your resolution is sustained.
- Be open to making changes to your resolutions. If you feel something is way too challenging, look at breaking it up into smaller bit size resolutions that are more achievable. You do not need to try and build a tower all at once. You can take it on one pillar at a time, eventually the tower will be built.
- The final tip I would like to leave you with is turn off the urge to procrastinate. Now is the time to ACT. Not tomorrow. The present is the only thing you have in control, what has happened is out of our control and the future is uncertain. The present is the only thing we are certain about. So don’t wait, act on your resolutions while you are in control.
Even though many people look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits, Brian Tracy says “Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favor” and this fact holds true in each of our lives.
