How to Ensure New Year’s Resolution Success
54How to Ensure New Year’s Resolution Success
The year 2010 is gone and 2011 is here. What does that mean for you? It’s time to set out to achieve goals for this year. According to Wikipedia, a New Year resolution is a commitment that an individual makes to a personal goal, project, or the reforming of a habit. This lifestyle change is generally interpreted as advantageous. Some examples include resolutions to donate to the poor more often, to become more assertive, or to become more environmentally friendly. The resolution is a parallel to Judaism’s New Year, Rosh Hashanah, through the High Holidays and culminating in Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), one is to reflect upon one’s wrongdoings over the year and seek and offer forgiveness. In Christianity, there is also a similar event known as the fasting period of Lent, though it is more about sacrifice than of responsibility. However, regardless of which creed the concept is self-improvement.
According to the government on USA.gov these are the top New Year’s Resolutions year after year:
· Get Fit
Given the list above, I would recommend picking only 2-4 goals for each year. The reason for that is if you pick too many, your commitment will be diversified and you won’t achieve any of them. It is better to focus only on a few because achieve something is better than achieving nothing. Statistically it is estimated that only 12% of people actually achieve their New Year’s Resolutions each year. That is about 1 out of every 10 people, which is a very low probability success. However if you pick only a few goals and work on it one at time, you’ll definitely succeed. For example if you pick 3 goals for the year 2011 and work on only one of them at a time you’ll have a much higher chance of success. You can do that by working on the 1st (most important) goal for the first 4 months or whenever you succeed at it, then work on the 2nd (next most important) goal for the next 4 months, and the 3rd (last most important) goal the last 4 months. This will ensure you focus on only 1 goal at a time and achieve it before you go to the next one, but you have a timeframe of when to accomplish each goal. So if you set out for 3 goals, it would be 4 months per goal. If you have 2 goals then you have 6 months per goal and if you have 4 goals, then 3 months per goal.
Here’s a practical 5 step process to achieve any goal:
1. Purpose/Vision: What is your motive for your action? Why do you want to do this? What do you wish to see in your future? This should be a long-term idea.
2. Analyses: Analyze yourself including your strengths, skills, talents, passion, and weaknesses. Analyze your environment: what are the opportunities and the obstacles in your way.
3. SMART goal: Create a goal which is specific, measureable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. This is extremely important because you cannot achieve your goal if you cannot define it.
4. Strategies & Tactics: This is your game plan. How will you achieve your goal? One of the best ways to achieve a goal is to break down your goals into mini-goals and get closer to it step by step until you reach it.
5. Execution: Tasks you’re going to take on a daily basis to move you closer to your goal. These tasks should be on the top of your to-do list everything. You should have about 2 tasks you do each day to get you closer to your goal.
Here are some more tips to achieve your goal:
-Review your goals every day when you wake up and before going to sleep
-Commit to it
-Share it with your family and friends
-Have someone hold you accountable for achieving it
-Visualize it daily
-Be persistent
-Reward yourself as you get closer to it
-Punish yourself intelligently (such as doing pushups) if you get farther from it
