New Year, New You

New Year, 

New You?

New Year, 

New You!

The ball dropped less than two weeks ago in NYC, symbolizing the beginning of a New Year. For many, the New Year is symbolic fresh starts…a time when many, if not most, people make New Year’s Resolutions…promises to do better in the coming year. If you are like me, the dropping ball has often been a metaphor for crushed failures of the previous year…failures which often happen within weeks after those resolutions are made. By now, most people have compromised those ubiquitous January promises. Although people have the best intentions when making their New Year’s Resolutions, the success rate is less than 15%. Perhaps the success rate would be higher if we approached the concept of these goals or promises in different way.

The most important thing to remember is not to become overwhelmed by New Year’s Resolutions. Accept your anxiety. Often times, anxiety just leads to more anxiety, so don’t fight it. Go with the flow, and this too shall pass. Below are a few suggestions to help you keep those New Year’s Resolutions…once and for all.

• Change your thought process. Work from the inside out. What you tell yourself is just as important as what you do. Work on your self-talk in order to minimize those limiting beliefs.  If you don’t believe you can accomplish your goals, you probably won’t. It is important to give yourself positive reinforcement. Tell yourself, as often as you can, that you can do whatever it is you want to accomplish. When it feels like you are running out of steam, take a cue from “The Little Engine That Could” and keep telling yourself, “I think I can, I think I can,” A positive attitude and approach produces much more successful results than “I can’t."

•  Focus on behaviors that will help you achieve your goal, rather than the goal itself. If you gradually change your actions, the end result you desire will be achieved within time. Set yourself up for success, rather than failure. Small steps lead to longer journeys. The trick is to make your journey sustainable along the way.

• Try not to multitask. We are a society that has to do ten things at once. Some people are very skilled at doing several things at one time…most are not. The result usually being that nothing gets completed at all. Focus on one thing at a time and stick with it until it is finished before starting on the next task. You will probably find that by focusing on just one task at a time, you actually get more done.

• Have a strong commitment to change your behavior in order to change your outcomes. If you are not determined to keep your resolutions, you won’t.  Put your resolutions in writing…it usually makes things more real when you put it to paper. Yes…paper. Don’t put it into an electronic device…although it’s not a bad idea to use that as a backup. WRITE your commitment. Feel the pen as it forms the words of your promise to yourself. Say the words as you write them. Then…put the paper in a place where you will see it several times a day.

• Schedule a time to work on your resolution and stick to it. “Exercising more” is a very vague goal. Walking on the treadmill at 7:30 AM on weekdays is more specific. The more you can narrow your goal, the more likely you are to follow through.

• Focus on today without worrying about tomorrow. Focus on the task that you are doing NOW. The only way you will be able to achieve your goal is to focus in the moment. Forget everything else for just 15 minutes and work on the task at hand. When that 15 minutes is up…do the same thing for 15 more minutes. See how long you can do this without losing concentration. It is a lot easier, and far less overwhelming, to attack goals when you bite off smaller pieces. You don’t eat a slice of cake in one bite; however, you usually manage to finish the whole thing. Apply this principle to your resolutions, and notice how much easier it is.

• Try to figure out what your obstacles are and devise a plan to overcome them as they arise. For example, if you have a tendency to answer every text message right away, you might turn off your phone while you are working on your resolutions.

• Keep track of your progress. Even the tiniest forward movement is reason for celebration.  Set up a reward system…not just for reaching your ultimate goal, but for smaller successes along the way.

•  Allow for some missteps without giving up entirely. One of the reasons people don’t succeed with long-term goals is that they give up completely if they have any small moment of failure. It’s ok to not be perfect as long as you get yourself back on track as soon as possible. Give yourself permission to fail on a smaller scale, but promise yourself that it won’t be a death knell for your ultimate goal. 

Even if you have already “blown it”…it’s not too late to start again. We have to stop being so quick to negate our accomplishments with our shortcomings. It’s all a matter of perspective, and if you acknowledge even the tiniest of achievements, you will set yourself in motion to accomplish your bigger, long-term goals. Breathe and reboot. Tomorrow is another day.