How to Keep Your Resolutions
In this article, you will discover how to avoid the trap that causes most people not to keep their resolutions. Ready? Here we go!
Last week we talked about making New Year’s resolutions that will work. (If you missed it, you can read the article at http://idealady.com/article/new_years_resolutions_you_can_keep/ )
In the previous article, we said that in order to make effective resolutions we need to focus on ACTION. We took our example list of resolutions from:
- Make more money.
- Lose weight.
- Spend more time with my kids.
- Get more things done.
- Be happier.
To:
- Hold one teleseminar every month.
- Walk at least 10,000 steps a day.
- Outsource the maintenance of my website and blog.
- Maintain a daily gratitude journal.
Your list will be different, and probably longer, but it should include a series of things you are going to DO.
By now you may have figured out the main reason why people fail at this. When you look at your list you may think, “I can’t possibly do all of that!” You’re right, if you try to do it all at once.
Resolutions fail because people try to make over their entire lives in one day.
Start by creating good habits. First decide what your highest priority is, or which steps should come before others. For example, writing in a daily gratitude journal could change your outlook in ways that will give you the energy and confidence to tackle new challenges. Get a journal and make writing in it a habit.
After a week or two, as you have gotten used to writing in your journal and it is becoming a habit, start on another task. That might be buying a pedometer and working toward your 10,000 steps daily, or it might be putting your family game nights on the calendar and planning the first one.
Put your action steps on a schedule. Let’s say that for your goal of making more money you identified several tasks such as holding one teleseminar a month, publishing a monthly email newsletter, distributing monthly press releases, creating a new report or other product every other month, etc. Give yourself a schedule of when you will do each thing, rather than playing it by ear and trying to cram all of the monthly tasks into the last two days of the month. Send a press release in the first week of the month, put out your email newsletter in the second week and hold your teleseminar in the third week. In the fourth week, work on your product. Put these on your calendar, and treat each one as an appointment that you will keep.
Got the idea? Do not make all of the changes you want to make at once. Take small steps, build habits, and get yourself on a schedule.
What happens when you get off schedule or break your new habit? It can happen that something throws you off. Do not let that be the excuse for stopping. Start right back up as soon as you can. The longer you stay away from your new good behavior the harder it will be to get back to it.
As each new action becomes a good habit, look for additional good habits to start. January 1st is not the only day you can make positive changes. Make them all through the year and multiply your success!
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