10 Jan Improve the Outcome Of Your New Year’s Resolutions By Utilizing 5 Steps To Success
As we enter 2015, thousands of people in Seattle will be setting New Year’s Resolutions. Yet just over 10% will realize their goals. Maybe you’ve set a resolution to focus on fitness, lose weight, spend more time with family and friends, or get better organized? Maybe you’ve come to this website because you’ve realized that your partner or parent needs professional caregiving support and your goal is to meet those needs? Perhaps you strive to create more time for yourself? Whatever goal or objective brought you to this blog is important! No matter how complex or simple your resolution, no matter how confident or overwhelmed you feel about your goal, 5 steps can help you improve the outcome of your pursuit in the months to come.
1) Be Specific. Set specific goals and visualize them as part of your life…how do they fit? For instance, if you set a goal to make more time for yourself but are balancing multiple demands, responsibilities may soon overtake your best intentions. Start small and create specifics such as:
- waking up 1/2 hr. early or staying up 1/2 later to carve out time for yourself. What will you do in those 30 minutes?
- Caregiving for a partner or parent? Consider hiring a professional caregiver to sub for you once a week so you can get away. Where will you go?
- Create personal space with tiny blocks of time like stopping in a coffee or flower shop while you’re out running errands. Can you smell the scents of flowers and coffee?
- Schedule an inflexible 1/2 for yourself in your weekly dayplanner. Visualize your escape!
To ensure success, get specific and visualize how your goal fits into your life.
2) Support your resolution. Most successful outcomes enjoy support. New Year’s resolutions are no different. Can you:
- Ask friends and family for their support
- Join an online forum
- Join a local MeetUp group
- Subscribe to a magazine that’s supportive of your goal
- Celebrate in some way after one month of reaching your goal, two months, three…
Reward yourself for integrating positive change and take your personal goals as seriously as you’d take another person’s goals. Visualize a system of support to maximize outcomes.
3) Take Action. Most of us establish New Year’s Resolutions in an effort to renew goals that have been hard to act on in the past. Now that you’ve set a specific goal and visualized a system of support….it’s time to act. In baseball this is called, “See ball. Hit ball.” In other words, stop thinking, stop planning, and do it. Buy that rose, put yourself in your dayplanner, hire someone to help. Take action. That simple and profound step is the magic that powers any goal or resolution to success.
4) Give it meaning. Set your goal within a greater context.
- Will meeting this goal help you control stress?
- Will meeting this goal improve your income or your health?
- Will it help you maintain mental acuity?
- Will it give you more quality time with a loved one?
- Will it improve your relationships?
Establish a greater context for your goals to increase relevance and motivation.
5) Inject fun! Everything is easier when it’s fun or happy. Find your way to a smile, laugh, or lighthearted approach. It doesn’t have to be fun every time but, by all means, don’t let your goals stall in seriousness.