We are nearly half way through February, and this is around the time that those New Year’s Resolutions start to fall short. I’ve collaborated with some of my colleagues and gathered their tips on making sure your New Years Resolutions don’t fall flat before the snow melts.
Accountability
Want to make sure your resolutions last the whole year, rather than fizzling out by March? My best tip is to find an accountability partner to help keep you on track. For me, that’s my mastermind group. Each week, I tell them what I intend to do over the next 7 days to move a little closer to a goal or to stick to an intention. Knowing they’ll be asking whether I did what I said I would really keeps me from giving up.
Becky Mollenkamp is a mentor who helps women entrepreneurs own their authority and crush their goals.[
Vision Board
In order to stick to those New Years resolutions I advise creating a vision board. You can create your board by sourcing photos or magazine cut-outs of your resolutions or making quotes with Canva. For instance if you want to get fit, put a pic of you’re dream body on it or if you want to buy a house then choose a pic of your dream home and so on. Arrange those on a board or just choose one pic to focus on. Then put the board somewhere you will see it regularly, like on the back of your bedroom door or the fridge. You will be reminded to focus on your goals and also manifest those things subconsciously. Good luck!
Ciara Doran is a SAHM and editor of an online magazine blog focusing on lifestyle, travel, food, fashion, home interiors, beauty, and news.
Sticky Habbits
Are you ready to create new habits that actually stay around the whole year long? You need to create sticky habits. You can start with an already established habit and stick your new habit to it. For instance, if you normally drink coffee every morning, and you’d like to start journaling, you can stick your journaling habit to your coffee habit so that now you journal while you drink your coffee. For extra staying power, create a sticky habit sandwich. Take two established habits, like brushing your teeth and taking a shower, and stick a new habit, like working out, right in the middle. Now you can use the power of your old habits to make your new habit stick. When you’re just not motivated to do your new habit, don’t focus on it. Focus on just following your routine and let the new habit fall into it’s place alongside your old habits.
Lori Evans is a Certified Health Coach who helps busy, tired moms to finally make healthy habits stick so they can lose what’s weighing them down live the happy, confident lives they were created for.
Step Back
Sometimes you have to take a step back to move forward. A resolution is simply a goal that you are trying to attain. We attach this great significance to them because of the New Year but when you get down to it they are self-imposed goals. Making goals at the start of the year with everyone else has the sense of camaraderie and belonging that we are familiar with and has the appearance of accountability and being a part of a group who are the same as we are, but, actually places additional pressure to show up and actually complete the thing we set out to do. When things get tough, as they inevitably do with ‘resolutions’ or ‘goals’, the court of public opinion isn’t always the best or most productive place to be or turn to, to find the clarity or motivation that is required to work our way through the problems we are facing. Don’t be afraid to take a step backwards to survey the landscape and make changes if necessary. To breathe and re-engage with your goal, your why and initial motivation, or to take another route to your end destination. There is no single route and sometimes we have to take a step back because we haven’t learnt the lesson that was needed in order to progress successfully. Just like in Snakes and Ladders, sometimes we hit the skids and have to slide back a few places so that we can move forward with confidence to the next stage. When setting your goals for the year also make a list of those in your life who are best placed to help you achieve your goals either practically or as support mechanism who are reliable and can be trusted to either give you the kick up the ass you need or the shoulder to cry on and then the kick up the ass, while you figure out the solution. Ask these people to support you, lean on them when you need to and remember to be kind to yourself – Rome was not built in a day and it is likely your goal won’t be achieved in a day either.
Bernadine Graham is a VA who works with entrepreneurs and small businesses to improve or create simple systems within their businesses that help to improve productivity and profitability with simple techniques and people at the heart of the solution.
Planning
The key to sticking to your goals is to create the RIGHT goals and to plan. How do you set a goal that’s right for you? Plan for your success. If your goal is to lose 20 pounds in 2018 then you gotta do the math to figure out what it is going to take to get there. That’s about 3 to 4 pounds per month, so let’s say a pound a week. Well, that means four 45 minute workouts a week, plus a calorie deficit of 800 kCals per month, which is 200 per week. Now ya know what you have to do. Very reasonable if you’re consistent!
Just calculate your checkpoints by taking the overall long-term goal and breaking it down, so it’s not daunting. This works for any type of goal you create. If you want to reach 50 new business connections/business “partners” by the end of the new year, break that up throughout the year. With about 4 new connections per month, you’ll be able to realistically set meetings and networking time to make that goal happen. Set reminders for yourself and check in with yourself to see how far you are into accomplishing your goal. If your goal is on a more personal level, and you’d like to be a more generous person, try to give yourself a goal to do X acts of kindness in 2018. Break that up by month, and set time for you to prepare for that, whether the acts be big or small. Poor preparation = poor performance and idea without execution is just an idea, so remember that it’s all about setting the right goals and charting your action plan to achieve them.
Cat Kom is the founder of Studio SWEAT onDemand (SSoD), an online community and at home-workout solution, with innovative classes and a live atmosphere.
