Happy New Year to you and yours and I hope you had a great festive break. I was in Doha with Mr C – so a very different but lovely festive season!
I have been watching as people announce their New Years Resolutions and based on previous years – I wonder how many of them will be achieved.
You see, here’s the thing. Most resolutions are things that people know they ‘need’ to do, but secretly they don’t really want to. And they focus on the resolution itself and not the outcome.
For example – you want to lose a few pounds, you know that’s what you “should” do, but you don’t really want to go on a diet, and so its doomed to fail before you even start. What you need to do instead is focus on the outcome and make it something you want so much that you are happy (not even willing – but HAPPY) to be taking on the challenge.
If you focus on feeling healthier, fitting into all the clothes you have in your wardrobe or being able to go play with the kids, the foundation for the resolution becomes stranger.
Also – it has to be something you want forever and not just for January, because to change something permanently means you can’t go back. You have to change forever, not just for January.
So when you have a BIG intention (better word than resolution), there are 3 things you can do to really help yourself achieve it for once and for all – once you have determined this really is the thing you are going to do this year, and your reasons why are STRONGGGG.
Here are the 3 steps to success.
Firstly, break down your big intention into daily steps. And focus on just TODAY. Just achieve todays steps. Don’t think of all the days that come after. Today you only have to do todays steps. And make these easily achievable – walk for 10 minutes/drink X glasses of water/meditate for 5 minutes when you wake up or before sleep.
It is much easier to tackle a couple of small items than dwell on the entire task. It also means that if you miss a task or a day, you just get back on it the next day without feeling you have failed at the big picture.
Secondly, don’t remove/get rid of/stop something. I know – that sounds counter intuitive right? If you want to lost weight normally you have to give stuff up – sweets, sugar, alcohol etc Well if you do that you will feel deprived and likely fail at the first hurdle – so instead a better strategy is to replace. With something you like.
So instead of giving up sweets – replace with cherry tomatoes, or chewing gum (sugar free) or even sugar free sweets – M & S do some good ones. Instead of a glass of wine, replace it with a glass of sparkling water with a sugar free flavour – lime/lemon/etc. Psychologically it is much easier to replace than remove.
Thirdly, find someone or a group, to be accountable to. I have a daily 8am check in with the WHY’s women and men. Once you have put your intention out there it is much easier to stick to if you have a bunch of other people who a) know about it and won’t let you slide off the path and b) will actively support you to carry on and achieve your dreams because they are doing the same.
If you would like to find out more about our ‘accountability’ group – head over here now.