New Year’s Resolutions – why we fail to achieve them, what’s the success rate, what to do to keep New Year’s resolution and how to succeed? This is all we will talk in this article.
We hear that 80% of New Year’s Resolutions fail, we hear that 6 months in the beginning of the New Year around 40% of people still keep on working on their New Year’s resolution and they didn’t give up. Apparently there is not much data nor sufficient and representative studies (source below) as to how successful or unsuccessful New Year’s Resolutions are. The overall perception is that not many people succeed in achieving their goals set at the beginning of the year.
Anyway, what to do to succeed and achieve your New Year’s Resolution regardless of data availability?
Unrealistic goal – you may have gone for too big goal within too short timeframe. and what also may happen is that you set such a big goal for yourself that you are subconsciously afraid to achieve it… It may be an indication of a too short timeline – set a longer timeframe for accomplishment of your New Year’s Resolution.
No plan – originally you had in mind what you want to achieve but you never planned for how to actually achieve and what steps you would need to take to achieve your New Year’s Resolution. Once first unforeseen circumstances happened, you became demotivated and you dropped the goal altogether.
And lack of tracking – you may be completing a lot on the way to achieving your New Year’s Resolution but since you are not tracking your progress you don’t realise how much you already completed and your motivation goes down and you slow down and eventually you drop the idea of making this positive change in your life.
Set realistic goal.
By nature we tend to overcommit – we set too ambitious goal, too short timeframe. What if you set your goal and then you set for yourself baby-goals within that. It will be easier to make smaller achievements. Also it will be easier to track your progress. For example – you want to lose weight – you want to lose 20kg within next year. Remember the overall goal but focus on losing one kilogram and then on losing another kilogram – baby steps. You will have number of smaller achievement that will contribute to achieving the overall bigger goal. What may help you in keeping your New Year’s Resolution is externalizing it – share it with the friend. Tell them what you’re doing, what you’re working on. This builds a sense of commitment for you.
Make a plan.
A goal without a plan is just a goal. It is important to also a have equally realistic plan that will help you realise what you know and what you still need to check and learn in order to achieve your goals. Face the situation. It may help you to tie down the goal. Or possibly it may help you revise it if needed as you may realise while working on the plan that your goal was not realistic enough.
Track your progress.
It can be as easy as writing a date on a piece of paper and your result – whatever that is. i.e I lost 500g, I saved 100eur, I found a new position and now I will apply for it. I spent more time with my partner and my children this weekend. Without tracking the progress you may not realized how much you progressed and how much you actually accomplished since last time you checked.
Motivate yourself.
What does motivate you? Progress itself? Very good! Tracking motivates as well. If however you need more motivation, think of situations when you had achieved something in the past. What motivated you to do that? Can you apply it now? If there is nothing you can think of, you can motivate yourself to achieve your New Year’s Resolution by reminding yourself wat the reason is for you wanting to achieve it. Say it out loud. Use affirmations (link to affirmation). Choose one sentence that motivates you and whenever you feel you start losing motivation – you can repeat this sentence as a mantra to support yourself in creating a positive change in your life. Ie. “I will gonna make it.” “I am strong and I will achieve my goal.” You can also call a friend and ask them what they would tell you to motivate you.
And remember: Dreams come true when you yourself make it happen.
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