Seven Sure-fire Ways to Make Your New Year Resolutions Reality
If you plan to make resolutions for the coming year, make it worth your while. Don’t just dream and dash off a wish list. Give yourself the gift of New Year’s resolutions that truly give you the life you imagine.
Here’s how.
The following seven powerful techniques will help you take the resolutions you make for the New Year all the way from conception to completion. (Won’t it feel great next December to look back on your New Year’s resolution list with every item checked and crossed off — with a great big circle around Mission Accomplished!)
These tactics apply equally well to goals in both the personal and professional domains of your life.
1. Before listing Resolutions, discover your “True Ends.”
There is nothing inspiring in listing bland New Year’s resolutions such as lose weight, exercise more, spend more time with the kids, and the like. Or listing workplace goals such as have more staff meetings, build more rapport with peers, improve professional skills…
TIP: Answer this powerful question for every resolution you make: What do I get when I achieve this?
EXAMPLE from the personal domain: It’s not “lose weight” — nor even, “lose 10 pounds by March 1.” Those goals are not likely to sustain you through the hard work you need to put in to meeting the objective. Instead, focus on the True End. What do you get when you do the activity?
How about: “Lose 10 pounds by March 1st so that I can wear clothes that make me look and feel better.”
Or, “Spend at least an hour every other day in totally focused time with the kids so that I can make a significant positive impact on their emotional development.”
EXAMPLE from the workplace: It’s not “have more staff meetings” — nor even, “publish a staff meeting schedule by April 1.” Those goals are not likely to sustain you through the work you need to put in to meeting the objective.
Instead, focus on the True Ends. What do you get when you accomplish the goal? How about: “Publish a schedule for bi-weekly staff meetings by April 1st so that I can learn more about the staff’s perspectives on current projects, reduce bottlenecks in work flow, improve associate engagement, reduce interruptions to my work day, increase work satisfaction and lower stress levels for everyone.”
When you focus on the True Ends, you spell out the benefits you expect to gain as a result of the work you put into pursuing your resolution. That can inspire and sustain you through all kinds of resistance.
2. Identify at least an initial plan and the necessary processes for realizing your new goals.
Many people fail to achieve their (even very specific and realistic) goals simply because they did not have a plan for executing the activities required to produce the targeted outcomes. If you do not think about and plan the how of your New Year’s resolutions–charting at least an outline of action steps–you have nothing but a dreamer’s wish list. And lofty dreams don’t usually materialize into hard reality all by themselves.
Whatever your resolutions for the coming year, you’ll find them coming to fruition when you pursue them with the twin powers of optimism and discipline.Put some time into crafting an action plan. Pick up a book, do a web search, gather and read information on “best practices” and glean lots of other expert tips on how best to do what you are setting out to do.
Every human activity in the world has been analyzed and cataloged twenty (a thousand) times over. Avail yourself of expert thinking; get smart about the processes that will lead you to achieve your objectives.
3. Target incremental benchmarks for your progress, and tie them to your recent history.
No matter how modest or ambitious your goals for the year, chances are that you cannot accomplish your objectives in one swift move — especially if you have done little previous work in the area you’ve targeted for improvement.
 |
|
Accomplishing your goal comes from incremental achievements. |
If you’ve not been very diligent in giving your staff performance feedback, you won’t close the gap by suddenly checking in on your reports every 15-minutes. If you haven’t exercised in a couple of decades, you are unlikely to achieve a goal of winning the Boston Marathon.
So, to make good on your resolution to give your staff more timely and frequent feedback, start making progress by getting away from your own desk at least once a day more than what was you previous habit. After a couple of weeks of doing that, increase the number of conversations you initiate with each staff member to at least one per day. Then gradually ramp up to once in the morning and once in the afternoon.
Targeting several little goals will lead you, rather easily, to your big one. Stair-step your progress: One push up today, three a day by the end of next week, at least 10 a day by next month…
Chart your progress. Keep records that demonstrate your achievements. And then go ahead and bask in the glow of documented accomplishment.
4. Build in some FUN!
How can you make progressing toward your goal more like enjoyment and less like torture? Working with my coaching clients, I’ve found that there’s almost always a way. Think about shaping the environment surrounding the tasks related to your goal so that you naturally derive pleasure from doing the activities that lead to your attaining your objective.
EXAMPLE from personal life: If you really enjoy being with other people, don’t exercise alone. Find a friend or a group of friends who will join you in the gym. Then, socializing, gossiping and laughing with people you like, you probably won’t hardly even notice the time and effort you now easily spend on the treadmill, stair machines, and the like. The time flies by and you wonder, “Hey, how did I work up such a sweat?”
If socializing isn’t your thing, think about adding music or the great outdoors to your uniquely motivating mix. When I needed to seriously shed pounds and tone muscles a few years ago, I mixed lots of my favorite “pump” music and put it into a portable player. Then I got the best shoes and great outdoor gear I could find so that I could walk and lift weights in the outdoors I so love. RESULT: I lost more than 25 pounds without feeling tortured and I’ve been exercising regularly for more than three years now. I find it absolutely effortless to “psyche up” for the workout because I find it so enjoyable and rewarding on so many levels.
Maybe your nirvana is in a local mall. Or a quiet corner of your basement. Or whatever. The key is to create a rewarding situation that makes your goal activities rewarding in themselves. When it’s rewarding, it’s easy to do. And to keep doing.
EXAMPLE from the workplace: If you want to build relationships with your colleagues, but abhor small talk or feel too distracted by all the “real work” in the office, try making the objective more personally rewarding. Like to golf? Invite some peers out for a casual day on the links. Don’t have an agenda, just spend the day together and let the chitchat lead to deeper bonds. If golf isn’t your sport, go fishing, boating, or have your colleagues over for a barbecue on a Sunday afternoon.
The key is to create a rewarding situation that makes your goal-related activities rewarding in themselves. When it’s rewarding, it’s easy to do. And to keep doing. And that helps you gain without pain.
5. Publicly commit to your goals.
Use the power of public testimony to reinforce your commitment to yourself.
EXAMPLE from personal life: Tell everyone you feel comfortable telling, “I’m giving up cigarette smoking this year.” Or, “I’m going to fit in a size 5 by the end of May.”
Post a chart of your progress on the refrigerator, in your work area.
EXAMPLE from work: Tell your friends outside of work, “I’m going to be a better boss this year by spending more one-on-one time with each of my associates.” Or, “I’m going to complete my projects on time by making a more thorough project plan for every major project I’m involved with.”
Post a reminder of your goals on the refrigerator at home, on your workplace blotter, in your car, wherever you’ll regularly see it.
Keep proclaiming your commitment. Enlist the power of public testimony (and the encouragement of loved ones and friends supporting you). And use the power of frequent reminders to reinforce your commitment.
6. Forgive your little lapses.
No matter how well you plan, how many people you tell, how enjoyable you make the task environment, you are probably gonna slip. It’s okay. You’re human.
Falling off the plan does not mean you’ve failed. Just that you need to get up and get back on the path you had set for yourself. Just dust yourself off, shake off the transgression, and start again.
Here’s the productive cycle for your little stumbles: Forgive, forget, forward!
7. Reward yourself for true progress.
You know very well what would be a great reward for yourself. So you don’t need me to list suggestions.
One caution: Exercise discipline so that you don’t reward yourself in anticipation of making your goal. Rewarding yourself prematurely short-circuits the reinforcement process and defeats the incentive value of the reward. Why bother to work for it if you’ll just hand the goodies to you anyway?
One exception: If you set for yourself a personal goal of slimming down or toning up and that means that you’ll eventually be able to wear clothing that you cannot fit into now, go ahead and buy an outfit that you want to fit into. Hang it up prominently so that you can see it every day. And whisper to it every morning, “Soon. Soon.”
Whatever your resolutions for the coming year, you’ll find them coming to fruition when you pursue them with the twin powers of optimism and discipline.
Very best wishes to you and yours for a safe, healthy, and prosperous 2006.
Explore posts in the same categories: Personal Power, Motivation, Career, Purpose
January 4th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Thanks! I’m going to use these techniques to finally do what I know I should!
Kathy