Design Your Life's Road Map

7 TIPS FOR NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS THAT STICK

Author: stuart baldwin

Tip No. 1 DO YOU REALLY CARE?

The research shows that 4 out of 5 people fail in their New Year's resolutions by January 20th, which is not ideal.

One of the reasons they say that people struggle is because the resolutions we often set simply aren't inspiring enough to us, we just don't care enough about them, they are not things that really matter to us. You know, I don't think I could complete a Suduko puzzle to win a night's camping but I would run through walls to get the chance to live in a beach hut on a deserted island, because that's just what I like, what matters to me and we need to do the same thing with these resolutions. We need to make sure we set things that are really inspiring for us, that we really care about, not what we think we should have or other people think we should do or society thinks we should do but things we genuinely personally really care about.

Here's a good way of doing that:

Imagine that it's the end of December 2011 and you are looking back at the year just gone and you ask yourself what did I achieve in 2011 that I am really proud of? What do I want to tell people about that I did in 2011? What do I think "yea that was really something important that I am really pleased that I did achieve, conquer, whatever?"

See what thought comes to mind and it's probably something you want to set as a resolution.

Tip No. 2 LIFE IS A GAME OF INCHES

80% of people fail to achieve their resolutions and one of the reasons for this is because the kind of resolutions that we often set tend to be a bit vague, you know we say stuff like "I want to lose weight" or "I want to move house" or "I want a new car" or "I want a new job" which is not bad for direction and certainly is probably true but in terms of being practically useful they are just a bit too wide, a bit too vague.

Life is a game of inches. It's our ability to know what we want, know what direction we are heading in, but take small actions, step by step, day by day, inch by inch, towards what we want that enables anyone to achieve anything. Clive Woodward the rugby coach who took England to the 2003 World Cup victory has a philosophy, which is to do 100 things 1% better, because he believes the gap between first and second place in elite sports is pretty narrow, as is the gap between doing something and not doing something in life, so Clive had Nike especially re-design the rugby jerseys for his team so they were skin-tight just so that his players would stand a better chance of getting on Strictly Come Dancing… or maybe it was so they wouldn't get ‘yanked' by the opposition? ;)

So this is what we want to do, we want to set ourselves very clear next step goals. If we know what we want for our resolution is to weigh X by a certain date then we have got to also ask ourselves "what's our first step," "what comes next" and maybe it's to buy fruit tomorrow or join the gym by Thursday but it is essential that we keep setting those next steps and doing them, set the next one and do it, and keep moving, inch by inch, step by step towards the thing that you want.

Doing this builds confidence and belief, we can keep experiencing ‘little wins'. If you are still struggling to do some of your next step actions, chunk them down further, make them even smaller so you can not fail. It makes life very simple and a hell of a lot easier to realise you don't need to worry about what you can't do, or how hard, big or scary something is. If you keep moving a little bit at a time, you will of course eventually get to where you want to be. So be patient and remember … Life is a game of Inches.

Tip No 3 MAKE IT PERSONAL

33% of people who fail to complete their New Year's resolutions say it was because it was something they weren't really committed to and I think this is an interesting area to look at. Are we setting resolutions that we really care about or are we setting things that other people think we should have, that society suggests we should do or that we feel we are supposed to do?

This is a big thing in life, are we able to follow our own path or do what we think we should do, what we are supposed to do. One of our biggest opportunities for achieving the greatness that we are capable of in our lives is to get comfortable with the idea that you are different from everybody else and it's ok to care about what you care about. Everyone will be different and if you follow the path that is doing what you are supposed to do, what society says you are supposed to do, what your parents or friends, or children or partner think you should do rather than what you want to do you will find it really difficult to be happy, never mind to achieve the things that you have set out to achieve. So this is our opportunity when setting resolutions. To make sure we set things that we really, really want, that we really care about.

Here's a neat way of doing that, make 3 lists, firstly of all the things that make you smile, in your life, your work, things that when you think about them, a real natural smile comes to mind when you think about doing that activity or achieving that thing. It can be normal stuff, every day things or big stuff, whatever. What makes you smile?

Secondly make a list of all your strengths and don't be humble, don't say "oh, I don't know, I'm not really any good at anything." Just say "what am I good at?" I'm good at talking, I'm good at helping people, good with numbers, good at sitting quietly and planning, good with the kids, whatever... Make a list of all the things that are your strengths.

Then make a third list of all the things that are really important to you in work or life or whatever. Small things, big things, it doesn't matter. A list of things that are really important to you that really matter to you and then notice which kinds of subjects appear in all three lists. What things are common across those three areas.

Those are the things that you should be setting your New Year's Resolutions in line with. The things that you really care about and that you really want.

Tip No 4 GET GREAT GOALS

Quite often we set resolutions but we don't set goals. They are not really clear, measurable, simple, practical things that we can achieve and so we try and achieve stuff which is just too vague or too wide to be something which is practically useful to us. You've probably heard about goal setting many times before, it's something a lot of people talk about but I think it is easy to brush off, I certainly have done a bunch of times, but it really does work, it really does make a difference.

In 1953 there was a class at Yale University in America who took part in some research. There were a hundred of them and they asked them a bunch of questions, knowing that they would come back to these guys twenty years later on and see what they had done with those questions. One of the questions they asked them was "do you have a goal" and 10% of the group said they did have goals and when they came back twenty years later those 10% were measurably more successful and happier than the rest of the group but what is more persuasive is 4% of the group said that they had specific goals that were measurable and written down and when they came back to that group twenty years later each one of those four was worth more money individually than the rest of the group put together.

Setting goals really works, so when you are thinking about your resolutions don't say "I want to lose weight," say "I want to weigh X by a certain date." Don't say "I want to live somewhere better," say "I want to move house to this kind of place by July, don't say "I hate my job, get a better one," say "I would like a new job, working in this kind of industry for this kind of salary" or whatever else is important to you by this day. You get the idea? Set really good, clear, specific and measurable goals and that's the key, make sure they are measurable, put a date on them and make them as specific as possible so it will be ‘this kind of car by that date that I want.' Really good goal setting says who will do what, by when. If you set yourself really good goals, rather than vague resolutions you will massively increase your chances of achieving them.

Tip No 5 KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID

40% of people who fail to complete their resolutions say that it's because they had too many things to do and the research shows us will power is a limited resource.

So here's a thought, instead of setting a few resolutions because you feel you should, consider just setting one, the single most important thing you want to achieve next, you want to change, you want to do, you want to get. Then maybe when you achieve that one, set another one after that but consider starting the year just focusing on one thing. It can be incredibly powerful. Better to achieve that one thing that's most important to you than to not achieve five things which were ‘kind of' important to you and if you want to find out what that most important thing is, if it's not instantly coming to the top of your mind then make a list of all the things that you want, of all the resolutions you might have or goals you might set and then mark each of them out of ten for how really important to you they are. See what floats to the top.

Better to achieve that one thing than to fail at lots of things. Good luck!

Tip No 6 SO WHAT DO YOU WANT?

The research shows 6 out of 10 people struggle to set resolutions because they don't know what they want. Maybe they know what they don't want but they don't know what they want. This is, of course, relatively normal for us. I think, however, that most people do know what they want but just struggle to perhaps see it, recognise it, draw it out of themselves. If you ask yourself the right questions then normally you can find what it is you really care about, what it is you want, what direction you want to head in. It's kind of like ‘researching yourself', finding insights about yourself by asking the right questions.

One of the things that really helps when you are doing this is to break it down a little bit, because "what do I want?" is kind of, a big question but if you break it down into four key areas it can be much easier. So ask yourself what do I want next year in these four areas.

What do I want for my family? That could be with your partner, with your children, with your parents, whatever.

What do you want next year in your work? It might be to get a job, might be to change your job, get a promotion, get stability, get more money, enjoy it more. What do you want with your work in 2011?

What do you want next year for your health? Your emotional health, your mental health, your physical health. Is it to lose weight, gain weight, train more, be calmer, less stressed, be happier.

and finally, ask yourself

What do you want next year in the area of fun? Time with friends, hobbies, nights out, reading, relaxing, whatever it is you think of as fun?

If you do that it often becomes really clear that there are some things that you really want and you can set some really good New Year's Resolutions in line with that.

Tip No 7 THE POWER OF THE POSITIVE

The brain does not recognise the word ‘Don't. It's just the way our heads work and if you've not heard this before then try it out for yourself right now.

Whatever you do right now don't think of, don't imagine a red car and don't see a warm cup of tea or coffee and hear the teaspoon clinging on the cup. You can't do it, right? It's just the way our brain's work, we don't process the word don't , the way it's intended in language.

Gary Lineker was once asked who the best football manager he ever worked with was by a journalist, he hesitated, and the journalist said, "well surely it was Bobby Robson 1990 World Cup England team semi final, massive achievement" and Gary said "God no, we were there, we had penalties to take that was all that was left and we knew what we were doing. We'd practiced this, we'd rehearsed it, we knew how to do it, and Bobby came over and he said ‘for God's sake lads, don't screw up now, there's 50 million people watching this game, if you mess up now you'll never forget it, so don't mess up'" and you wonder to what extent Bobby was responsible, maybe, for what happened.

So if this is how our brains work, it is really important that when we set resolutions we frame them positively. It's not helpful for us to say things like "don't smoke so much, don't drink so much, don't be so lazy" these are not good objectives to set our brain, it doesn't help us to achieve them. We want to set goals that are positively framed, things like "I want to smoke X amount per week, or I want to smoke nothing per week or I want to drink X amount per week or month and I want to exercise X amount of number of times per week."

If you set yourself positively framed goals you give your brain a much better chance of helping you to achieve them.

To see these tips as 7 short videos go to

http://www.getwhatyouwant.me/2010/12/19/7-tips-for-new-years-resolutions-that-stick/

For more help getting what you want in 2011 go to

http://www.getwhatyouwant.me

It's full of free videos, articles and blog posts to help you create the life you want.

Or get my free ebook and video series

http://www.getwhatyouwant.me/free

Thanks and see you there

Stuart

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/goal-setting-articles/7-tips-for-new-years-resolutions-that-stick-3911566.html

About the Author

Hi Im Stuart,

I work with public and corporate organisations as a speaker, trainer and consultant to develop leadership, culture and engagement, helping people perform at their best and reach their goals. In doing this work I realised the same things that enable people to do incredible things at work can help people to get what they want in their life and this, all of a sudden, somehow seemed significantly more important. So I started looking for ways I could connect these ideas and practical tools with as many people as possible, through articles, videos and a new website. It has sort of became my altruistic mission and one of the things that brings me the most happiness in life :)

My Story

I was in UK media for 15 years and got deeply obsessed with understanding why some people were great at achieving things and others really struggled. My fascination was in finding simple and practical steps I could use with my teams to increase their performance. In doing so I found things that can help anyone achieve anything.

I researched and learned neuroscience, performance psychology, action coaching, NLP, personal development theories, talked with hundreds of experts, crashed lectures, interviewed high performance people in every field... anything I could find.

Growing up in broadcasting I had been taught to make complicated things simple (to get to the point) so they could be communicated in such a way that would make people remember and act on them and with out really realising it, this is what I started to with what I was learning.

My brain also needs things to be simple so I can remember and use them, so I was looking for insights, those ah ha moments of clarity and truth out of all the masses of information I was consuming. Id then figure out how to practically use those insights in real life situations to increase day to day performance. Once Id got the idea to show itself to be practical and useable I would then work on the most effective way to connect it with others so they could get a real experience of the idea, and a structure to incorporate it in to their life.

This became the practical and simple 3 part process which now helps people get what they want in work and life.

Have fun

Stuart