Wednesday 22 December 2010

How to make a sucessful New Year's Resolution

How to Make Successful New Year’s Resolutions – more about ‘why power’ than will power.

Answer 5 questions to make your 2011 resolutions successful.

Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution? Maybe you resolved to lose weight, stop smoking or get fit. Did you see it through? The vast majority of people do not and by the end of January they will be back into their old habit patterns after promising this year would be different.

Sound familiar? Ian Henderson, coach and professional speaker, says to make your resolutions stick you need to answer five big questions:

What do you want?

This must be specific (measurable) and focused on what you want to do or have rather than what you don’t want or don’t have.

Why do you want it?

This is the biggest question and gets to your real motivation. You need a big why or your efforts will fail at the first test. Your why might be that to continue causes you so much pain that there really is no alternative. It may be that what you are looking to achieve is so powerful for you that you will do anything to get it. The bigger your why, the easier the how is. Without a big enough why, the how becomes difficult.

Does your goal fit in with who you are as a person?

To be successful it must connect with who you are as a person and what you strongly believe in. If it doesn’t, you will find ways to sabotage your efforts to change and you will be making the same resolutions again next December 31st.

How will you do it?

This is about taking committed action. The good news is that your actions don’t need to be revolutionary. Break a big goal into smaller, achievable targets. Lots of small successes built on each other can make a big change over time.

When will you do it by? 

As soon as possible does not appear in any diary. Putting a date on your goal increases your focus.

Ian says that, "With so many people giving up on their resolutions it seems that they look forward to the New Year to make a new start on old habits. Don’t let this happen to you this year.” 

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...