How To Keep New Year’s Resolutions: From Words To Actions
Surely on several occasions you have made a long list of resolutions for the new year at the end of the last days of the month of December; a list of goals that you have rarely ended up achieving.
Setting these resolutions for the beginning of the new year is an excellent way to start it with motivation, optimism and positivity; However, most people find it difficult to achieve this once they are faced with the responsibility of keeping their word.
New Year’s resolutions can be based on the desire we have to improve or change some aspect of our lives that we don’t quite like or to make a radical change in ourselves.
If you want to change that negative dynamic that does not allow you to fulfill those good wishes to start the new year ahead, keep reading. Below we explain the main tips or strategies that you can follow to fulfill all the purposes you set for yourself at the end of the year.
1. Set realistic goals
Set realistic and concrete goals when establishing objectives and resolutions for the new year It will help us not to get frustrated in case we do not succeed at first and also to not give up during the first days or weeks of the beginning of the new year.
This means that we must take into account our real capabilities and possibilities before setting a certain New Year’s resolution that may be out of our reach.
For example, if we start the daily habit of running on January 1, we cannot expect to run a marathon on the 5th or even the 10th, since that activity requires training, practice and experience.
2. Write a list of purposes
Writing all our purposes on a physical or virtual list is a very positive exercise that will allow us start keeping in mind daily what we want to achieve
Briefly but limitedly describing our purposes and accompanying each description with a summary of the qualities and virtues we have to achieve them will also help us psychologically to achieve any goal we set for ourselves.
3. Apply action triggers
The technique of action triggers is very useful to carry out activities or chains of actions for which we must take responsibility during the year, such as new resolutions. And if we want to learn how to keep our New Year’s resolutions, It is very important to place ourselves in the present moment and adopt very short-term commitments so as not to leave things “for another time”.
An action trigger is a reliable mental representation of an action or a process made up of several intertwined activities that, in addition, is linked to a specific time of day, and that allows us to carry out the specific action in the future as described. we have imagined in our heads. For example: “When I finish breakfast, I go to my room, sit in front of the computer and write a new line for my novel.”
These triggers They are activated automatically when we are faced with a specific stimulus such as a physical place, a time of day or when we meet a specific person or people.
4. Talk to others about your goals
Talking to other people around us about the objectives we have set helps us establish a tacit or verbal commitment with them, who in the future will talk to us about the subject and will be testimonies of our progress.
This serves as a great source of motivation, since their mere presence and the fact of talking daily with them about the progress regarding our goals will push us to move forward, having generated high expectations in all those people
5. Segment the challenges
Segmenting the biggest challenges by transforming them into smaller, short-term sub-goals will allow us to be clear about what to do at all times and visualize each of the sub-goals globally, being able to prioritize some over others or give more importance to them. certain emergencies over others.
Likewise, segmenting large responsibilities into smaller tasks, we will be able to close short cycles in a matter of hours or a few days thus managing to progress faster to achieve our final purpose and providing us with greater motivation to move forward.
6. Organize and plan your purposes
Having order in life is essential to successfully carry out any project and that the tasks to be done do not seem too intimidating to start solving; That is why in order to achieve our objectives and purposes we must be methodical, orderly and plan in advance each of the steps that we are going to take in our process.
For this, it is advisable to write down in an agenda or diary all the steps and phases that the process that we are going to start will consist of until we reach the desired purpose. Besides that, It is important to note well each of the unforeseen events, logistical requirements or obstacles that we can find during the realization of the New Year’s resolution.
7. Visualize them
Visualizing a goal in detail before achieving it is another of the psychological exercises that significantly contribute to being motivated and with the necessary attitude to achieve our goal.
This serves both to create a clear image of the objective achieved in our head and to frequently verbalize the purpose we are going to achieve and say out loud all the steps we will follow to achieve it.
