Make your resolutions count
This year will be the greatest year ever! I’m going to lose weight, quit smoking, make more money, find a new career, get in shape, improve my relationship… Do any of these New Years resolutions sound familiar?
Why do we make New Years resolutions? Does the turn of the calendar from one year to the next magically lead to us reaching all our goals? People continue to make New Years resolutions every year, regardless of the statistic that most are broken by February. Isn’t it time to change the way we think about our resolutions? Isn’t it time they stop ending up as items on our wish list that never actually get completed?
My suggestion is that you stop making New Years resolutions. Unless you are reading this on the first day of January. If you are reading this today, then make December 30th resolutions. If you are reading this on April 10th, then make an April 10th resolution. Take the challenge to make life changing goals whenever they enter your mind. Don’t wait for the New Year, don’t procrastinate, and set up your action plan right away.
As a quick example, let’s use the goal of losing weight. If you want to lose weight then figure out exactly how much weight you wish to lose. Then, commit to exercising 30 minutes a day with a specific amount of intensity. Then, keep an exercise journal and reward yourself each day that you exercise by charting how many days in a row you’ve completed the task. Now, you’ve created a streak. Three great things will come from this:
1. Each time you complete your 30 minutes of exercise and write the accomplishment down, you will get a surge of dopamine as a reward. Dopamine is a naturally occurring neurochemical that, simply put, makes you feel great!
2. Once you have developed a streak of multiple days in a row, you will find it easier to continue with your daily exercise because you will start becoming addicted to the streak you have created and won’t want it to end.
3. This streak will grow into a habit and, as long as you stick with it, you will eventually lose the weight as a byproduct of your activity.
It’s really as simple as that. Commit yourself to the activity that will lead to achieving your goal, reward yourself for completing the activity, and the goal will take care of itself. Instead of making the same old resolutions this year, don’t focus on the resolution and focus on the activity that will make the resolutions happen.
For a more detailed explanation of using micro-goals to reach the success you seek, it’s in my book Streaking to Win.