Reaching the first days of January with New Year’s resolutions has become a kind of widespread ritual in Western societies. However, from intention to fact there is a big leap and not everyone knows how to deal with it.
In fact, New Year’s resolutions have very little validity if we limit ourselves to wanting to achieve those goals and do not set them with a head And, unfortunately, many people confuse the simple act of thinking about what they would like to achieve with the act of taking the necessary steps to achieve those goals.
The belief that “visualizing” what we want makes these experiences “come” to us as if a universal law were responsible for attracting facts toward intentions is as popular as it is sterile and ineffective. Actually, blowing new year’s resolutions is the norm
But this does not mean that most people are predestined to fail in their attempts to improve aspects of their private life or their work career; Simply, resources are needed to take advantage of that motivational “push” that the start of a new year represents.
The first of them, to which this section corresponds, is dedicated to initial moment in which you set your goals for the year ahead and the second is aimed at monitoring and fulfilling these purposes in the first weeks of January and February, the key moment in which these changes in habits and routines may or may not be consolidated (in the end, starting is the most complicated).
That said, let’s look at the strategies and guidelines to follow to outline your New Year’s resolutions.
1. Goals must be achievable
The idea that goals should always be more ambitious than the actual result to be achieved is totally counterproductive: it only makes people frustrated when verifying that they do not have the capacity to reach those objectives.
When considering what you want to achieve, you must take stock of what you would like and the skills and resources you have, so that in this way it is easier for you to truly commit to that project
2. Goals must fit your values
If what you propose is not consistent with the values that constitute your ethical scale chances are that in a short time you will become demotivated or even able to enjoy your progress.
3. You must establish evaluation criteria that are easy to measure
You should not stay in abstract ideas about what you want to achieve Reaching a good level of concretion and detail will allow you to be able to assess your progress and correct errors as you go and, on the other hand, to feel good when you see that you are making progress.
4. The set of New Year’s resolutions must be coherent
Finally, you should keep in mind that if you limit yourself to setting New Year’s resolutions without seeing them as a whole, some may hinder the progress of others. Make sure they all “fit” together both in terms of time and resources needed to achieve your goals
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What to do to put your New Year’s resolutions into practice
Once the new year has begun, follow these tips to make applying them easier.
1. Set clear schedules
If you plan your schedules also taking into account the moments of rest and the hours dedicated to sleeping, You will not expose yourself as much to the temptation of procrastinating and not starting to do what you had proposed to do If possible, print the schedule on paper and hang it on the refrigerator or another place in the house that you see often.
2. Tell your friends and family about your New Year’s resolutions
If you explain to them that you have started a new habit, project or lifestyle, the fact that they know it and ask you about it from time to time It will be an element of motivation that will add to the desire you already have to achieve your goal
3. Link a space and a moment to your new routines
For example, visualize the fact that after brushing your teeth at night you will leave the bathroom and sit at your desk to memorize a page of vocabulary in a language you are studying. This way, Every day what you should do in each situation will automatically come to mind
Related article: “How to generate new healthy habits?”
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