What not to do if you want to achieve your New Years Resolutions

What not to do if you want to achieve your New Years Resolutions

Are you tired of not getting past February before you have broken your New Years Resolutions? Join the club you are not alone, but yet there is a science to actually having the chance to succeed.  

To avoid being in the majority and breaking your New Years Resolutions and Goals, consider why this might be happening and do the opposite.

1. It’s all or Nothing –Goals are a marker for the direction in which you want to take your life, especially if these goals are related to behavior changes. Provide yourself with a bit of wiggle room in terms of the exact number, timeline or experience you want to create.  Thinking such as you loose 25 pounds or you don’t, you save $10,000 or you don’t, you find a perfect person to share your life with or you don’t often cause us to stop short of our goal when any roadblock is thrown up inhibiting us from reaching it.  Often goals are not achieved by following a straight line. 

Instead of the all or nothing thinking, aim for progress. Aim for mastering your goal a little bit better than you have. After all one day a week of Yoga is better than none. Losing 5 pounds is better than gaining 5.   It might seem like a cope out, but when goals are especially tied to behavior change progress does make perfect.

2. We don’t reward ourselves enough and often enough. Small rewards provide us with an impetus to continue. A pat on the back, a compliment, a good feeling for the day will keep us on track. Don’t wait to reward yourself until you have reached the magic number, every step in the right direction counts.

3. No action plan to propel you along.   If you are going to set a goal, write out your action plan, get support, and make it manageable. Exercising once a week might be all you can commit to, find an exercise buddy, pay for a personal trainer, and put it into your calendar just like any other appointment. This goes for any goal—write a plan to make it come true.

4. Make the resolution something that will give you more pleasure than pain.
Many goals are nice to have but when the going gets tough we don’t have enough pleasure associated with it to keep going. Most people are more motivated by running away from pain than seeking pleasure. Turn up the heat and help the pain motivate you. Is it worth it to have a heart attack and leave your family to fend for themselves if you don’t lose weight? Is it worth it to be depressed in a dead end job for the next year because you are afraid? Make the intolerable, more intolerable and watch what happens to your motivation- it soars.

5. Your resolution is not tied to a bigger dream or vision
People who achieve goals and sustain the results have usually tied the goal to a bigger dream or vision. How is the goal of spending time with your family tied to your bigger vision of your life and dreams? How is the goal of being healthy and fit tied to your
vision of living a good long life?  Tie your New Years Resolutions a bigger vision and dream and see what happens. 

6.  Too Many Resolutions.  Having too many resolutions especially if they require a major life or behavior change is difficult to maintain over the long term. Shorten your list and find one resolution or goal that you want to achieve and apply all the factors to it to make it become a reality

7.  Use the Law of Attraction. Why not use all the tools at your disposal. Focus your thoughts in a positive way on attracting what you want. When negative thoughts pop up replace them with feeling-good thoughts such as, “I am looking forward to the pounds falling off me.” Keep it up and you will be amazed how good you feel and how the pounds come off.