Do you know the main reason New Year’s Resolutions don’t work?
Many people set New Year’s Resolutions with great intent. During the first few weeks of January, I hear of lofty goals around health, wealth, career, and relationships. By the end of the month, these are followed by calls of disappointment, and I have to tell people not to be so hard on themselves because statistics show that most people don’t achieve their New Year’s Resolutions!
Why? Because their goals aren’t aligned with their values. It is so important to set your goals in line with the things you really value, or you’ll falter within weeks – or even days.
In my program, Reignite Your Spark, you can determine your highest values and put them in order of importance. These values are what you need as a strong foundation on which to build your annual goals.
Our values arise from our voids. Whether consciously or unconsciously what you perceive as missing in your life, often becomes most important to you. The more important a value is – the higher it will be on your hierarchy of values and the more discipline and order you will have around it. The less important a value is – the lower it will be on your hierarchy of values and the less discipline and more disorder you will have associated with it.
Understanding your own true values will help you set up New Year’s Resolutions that you will achieve and be able to maintain throughout the year.
So how do you determine what your highest values are?
I can help you determine your values – click here and I will show you how
The answer also surrounds you.
If you look closely to see what you fill your spaces with, what you always have time for, what energizes you, what you spend your money on, what you think and talk about, and where you are most organized and disciplined.
Here are some tips for keeping your New Year’s Resolutions this year:
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Determine what goals worked last year and which ones didn’t
Before setting this year’s resolutions, evaluate which ones you kept last year and which ones you didn’t.
Your life demonstrates your true highest values or priorities and if the newly desired action is truly important why have you not already done it?
Your daily actions speak louder than your words.
Get clear on what goals of last year were not aligned with your highest values and write down New Year’s Resolutions that are aligned with your highest values.
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See how achieving these New Year’s Resolutions will serve you
When your ‘why’ is big enough, the ‘how’ will take care of itself.
When you can see how achieving this specific New Year’s Resolution will help you or serve in what is already important to you, you will automatically want to work on this goal.
Link what you would love to do, with what you already value and how it serves you, to increase the probability of taking action.
Compile a list of how you will benefit from achieving these goals this year.
Repeatedly ask yourself, “how would achieving this new desired goal help me fulfill my highest values?”
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Build momentum
Only set goals that are truly important to you or you will erode your self-worth and discourage yourself to set future goals.
Play to your strengths. Doing what you have a long-term track record of already doing, will increase your self-worth and therefore inspire you to set more goals.
Achieving a goal that is important to you, will inspire you to achieve greater things.
It is wise to set New Year’s Resolutions that are truly demonstrated to be of high value and do them in incremental stages to build lasting momentum.
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When you fall back to old habits
If you fail to keep a New Year’s Resolution, you probably still see the old habit as more effective.
Every decision you make and action you take is based upon the perception of what you think will give you more of an advantage over a disadvantage.
The more pleasure than pain, the more reward than risk.
When you see how the new desired action will give you as many rewards, you will more likely turn to the new desired action, instead of falling back to old habits.
So, if you are doing something other than what you intended, ask yourself, “how does fulfil this new intended action help or serve my highest values?”
Set clear goals that are congruent with your life view. This will give you the greatest probability of achieving and also keeping these New Year’s Resolutions throughout the whole year.
Done the correct way, it is very worthwhile setting New Year’s Resolutions. Thinking about what you want helps you focus, writing your plan down makes it more real and offers the opportunity to create small, achievable action steps.
Here are a few of my blogs as I reflect on the topics I discussed prior to the year’s end.
