New Year's Day is considered a new beginning and this one even begins a new decade. You take time to reflect back over the past year and consider what went right and could have gone better. It's a time to think about your plans for the coming year and many people start out with a New Year's Resolution. I don't have a scientific study to quote, but I'd wager that the top three resolutions are (1) stop smoking (2) lose weight (3) get more exercise.
All these are worthy goals, so how do you set a goal and have the best success for achieving it?
The best chance of success is if you truly know the "WHY" of this goal and what it means to you. Take a step back and really analyze why you set that goal. It's a much bigger motivator to connect the goal to the reasons and not just a result. And it's an even better motivator to connect this goal to creating a better reality for other people in your life as well.
For instance, you set your goal at "I want to lose 20 pounds this year." If you just make a vague promise to yourself because you want to look better in your jeans, you probably won't have a lot of success with sticking with it. But if you ask yourself for a meaningful WHY losing 20 pounds would improve your life and your family's life, you have a much better chance of finding the motivation.
If you think about losing that 20 pounds because of your health - maybe you are prediabetic, or maybe you have a problem with joints that would be alleviated by carrying less weight - you can see that your family would be positively impacted by you improving your health. More energy and ease of movement for time with children. Being able to go out dancing with your partner.
After you know your WHY you can refine your goal into steps that you can control instead of a particular outcome. Instead of saying "I want to lose 20 pounds" you could say "I want to walk four times a week and I want to cut out snacking after 8:00 pm." These are small steps that you can achieve and you can also tie them into your family. Take the kids or spouse on that walk with you, and everyone can have fruit instead of potato chips for a snack.
Find the path of least resistance to make your choices easier. Don't join an expensive gym and take a series of complicated ZUMBA classes if that's not something you're going to really enjoy and want to stick with. Slipping on your tennis shoes and taking a short walk around the block is simple, free, and a natural stress release.
Look for alternate easier behaviors to replace bad ones - it's easier to add a pleasurable habit that it is to remove a bad habit. If your downfall is to eat late evening snacks, instead of just saying "I will not eat after 8:00 pm", give yourself something else to do in that time period that you enjoy. Maybe take up sudoku puzzles, learn to play SteemMonsters, knit or build model cars.
Don't be too hard on yourself. Self-reflection is essential to tracking your success but don't saddle yourself with hard deadlines. Make it more about progress and gaining momentum with your new routines.
Don't be afraid of failure either! If you get stalled or backslide, go back to your WHY and look at the progress you've made. Life is made up of both failures and successes, that's how we learn.
So if you decide to make a New Year's Resolution this year, find your WHY, get your plan together, and make this 2020 a great year for yourself!
Greetings from Venezuela @blueeyes8960
Thanks for the tips. Valuable in all parts of the world.
I don't have a stable telephone or internet, but every time I can access Steemit, I take the opportunity to read a good job like this. Thank you
Thanks for those kind words!
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This year its definitely a must. This is do or die.
Well I wish you the utmost success!!
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Yes! Great suggestions!
I just finished reading the book "Atomic Habits" by James Clear and he breaks down habit forming quite nicely:
This is already helping me! Though, I'm still struggling to find the 'reward' in exercising before payoff 😉.
Thanks for sharing this!
😍@carrieallen
@carrieallen - thanks for the curation! And I'm glad that you found some value in my post. I wish you great success with your exercising goal - You can do it!
Lots of fantastic tips. When I learn to set goals... Reasonable goals that is when I actually started doing things. Everybody should evaluate what they want to accomplish and make one step towards that goal and then keep going. Nice post! Happy New Year!
@wandrnrose7 - thanks, finding some small successes can go a long way toward keeping motivated. Happy New Year to you as well!
The WHY! We did an excercise a while back defining our whys and such. Was a great way for people to self-reflect :)
@enginewitty - it does help with the motivation if you know why you're working.
Great advice @blueeyes8960. Breaking grandiose goals into bite size pieces (no pun intended ;)) is really helpful. All the best in 2020!!
@thejollyroger - very true! Wishing you a great 2020 as well!
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So true that life is full of success and failures but it is important to never give up. Cheers for the New Year!
Dear @blueeyes8960
I believe in this title of your publication
We can all have goals and should always be to improve our quality of life. That is my answer to Why.
Because I can achieve it if I want it and if it is in my goals they should be paramount.
I would like to know your valuable opinion in the following publication: 3 WAYS OF JOINING OUR EFFORTS + PROJECT "HOPE" ECONOMY EXPLAINED
Greetings.
@lanzjoseg
Informs my why with my who and when and that’s a great start to have a prosper 2020
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Thanks for your post. Setting goals and sticking to them are hard. If the goal is something life-saving, like my resolution to reduce my A!C level to under 100 to save my life, I think I'll work harder this year, each month, as I resolved to do, to accomplish it. I have no other choice if I want to live a healthy life.
It's not going to be easy, so I've broken it down into monthly challenges to see my progress.
You are very right in what you say, maybe we don't comply with our resolutions because they are complicated, difficult or almost impossible to carry out due to our daily habits.
We also create excuses for ourselves after other situations: I can't exercise because I don't have enough time. Because I have to take care of 4 children, a grandmother, two cats, and 10 dogs. You know what I mean.
I would like to learn a language this year, I would love to learn German.
As you say, I will look for the easiest way to learn, without forcing myself. Even if it means learning a word a day. To know at least to say: Hello, good day, How are you? Goodbye, and I love you. Right?
The other day, a friend of mine sent me a meme that said: Congratulations you have won a certificate of survival! You have survived the trials of hunger, lack of medicine, money, water, and light. Good job! Your next challenge is 2020!
Yeah! It is hard to live here in Venezuela. Perhaps the main resolution is to endure the conditions to come.
I liked your post. Thanks for sharing :D
Ps. I've been working together with my friend @crypto.piotr and few other guys on non-profit community project build on steem blockchain. It's called @project.hope
Please allow me to share with you link to our latest article, where we're explaining our economy and our goals. Your feedback and comment would be greatly appreciated.