February is almost over, and March is just around the corner – we’re two months into 2019 and statistically speaking about 80% of us have already forgotten or given up on our New Year’s Resolutions. It’s a hard pill to swallow but unfortunately, only 8% of people manage to achieve their resolutions! I have always been a part of the 80% that failed to stick by their resolutions however, this year I am determined to make it into the successful 8%.
Together with the help of Google, a ton of will power and even more self-determination you too can aspire to achieve your goals this year and to make it slightly easier for you, below is a brief outline on how you can begin to do so.
I do realize it’s February already and for those of you that have given up, you may feel as though you must wait for a whole year to start afresh, but it’s never too late to try again. Despite being referred to as New Year’s Resolutions, one can create resolutions for themselves at any time of the year and work towards achieving them.
It all starts with setting your goals or creating your resolutions, once you have listed them down somewhere (I’d recommend buying yourself a planner or a journal as this will help you keep track of your achievements/failures), take a look at what you’ve written and ask yourself the following questions (it may help to write down the questions and their answers as well):
1) Why do you want to achieve your goals? For yourself or to please someone else? If your reason is the latter, you will find that you’ve lost your motivation very quickly.
2) Are your goals measurable? The most common resolutions are to lose weight and eat healthy or to give up a bad habit such as smoking or drinking. Find a way to measure your goal, if it’s losing weight then a weighing scale is your answer, but for the more complicated goals find a way to track your progress: for example, if you want to quit smoking, record the number of hours/days that you can go without a cigarette and eventually try to increase this time period.
3) Why have you not achieved your goals yet? Is there something that’s stopping you from doing so? If chocolates are preventing you from losing weight, then stop buying them and get rid of the ones you’ve stored at home or at work.
4) How will you know when you’ve achieved your goals? Set a target for yourself, maybe an ideal weight or a set number of days that you want to spend without smoking.
5) Who is your support system? It’s important to surround yourself with people that want the best for you, be it, family or friends, inform them of your resolutions and ask them to check up on you with regards to your progress.
6) How do you plan on not giving into your weaknesses? Find an alternative substitute to your weakness, for example, indulge in some dark chocolate when you’re experiencing sugar cravings. Or if Netflix is preventing you from getting up and going to the gym then cancel your subscription for a few months.
7) What is your reward going to be? After so much hard work and fighting temptation, you deserve a reward! Decide on what you’re going to reward yourself with while setting your goal and during moments of weaknesses envision your reward!
Just by writing down your resolutions and asking yourself these questions you are already a step ahead of those who haven’t done so, now to ensure that you stick by these try to follow the instructions below as often as you can!
Read your resolutions out loud as soon as you wake up and before going to bed.
Visualize yourself after you have achieved these resolutions while you’re reading them.
Begin your journey towards achieving your resolutions with baby steps: start small and in time you will find yourself improving.
Have realistic expectations: do not expect extremely positive results in a short period of time, remember that “slow and steady wins the race”.
If you do falter or mess up do not beat yourself up, everyone fails at some point in their lives and the only time you can be called a failure is when you give up trying.
“There are no limits to what you can accomplish, except the limits you place on your own thinking.”
– Brian Tracy
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