How to make resolutions that work

Hello!! Happy New Year!!

It’s only two weeks into 2019, so permit me to still be talking about New Year’s resolutions. As 2018 drew to a close, I caught a number of discussions over the radio about whether or not there was any point in making new year’s resolutions. Some said yes, some said no, but the general consensus was that hardly anyone ever seemed to get past the first quarter of the year, let alone January with any of those resolutions intact.

A while ago I read around the issue of new year’s resolutions, and one writer suggested that the reason most people failed to fulfil their resolutions was because they were usually simply hopes, nothing more. While hope is all well and good – it keeps the world turning and keeps us putting one foot in front of the other in this journey of life – hopes are not likely to amount to much until they are converted to goals, complete with targets and timelines.

For example, one could say “My resolution is to make more money this year than I did last year.” That does sound like a worthy resolution, but it raises a lot of questions: how much is “more” money? How will you know that you have fulfilled your resolution? And loads of others.

Zig Zigler said, “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” Without an idea of what you’d like the fulfilment of your resolution to look like, it becomes challenging to move in the correct direction toward fulfilling it.

So how can I make resolutions that work, you ask. Here are a few pointers:

1-   1-  Turn your resolutions into goals: Instead of writing a long list of resolutions, how about writing a list of goals instead? And yes, actually writing these things down helps in a big way. It has been said, “The palest ink is more reliable than the most powerful memory.” One of the first steps in ensuring that our resolutions, now goals, have a chance at becoming reality is by writing them down. In what area of life is a change required? What does that change look like? Lose 10 kg? Make twice as much money? Write it down.

2-    2-Timelines: After the goal(s) has been penned down, set a timeline. Should this goal be met in a year? Half a year? A week? I believe setting a year as a target timeline is prudent since one is likely to cover all the possible seasons that usually play out in that time period.

3-    3- Break the timeline down into little “bite-sized” pieces: If the timeline is a year, it could be broken down into half year, quarter year, monthly, weekly, daily, maybe even hourly timeslots, depending. This helps to set in place mini-targets that are more palatable, less alarming, hence less discouraging or overwhelming to be achieved on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. It also allows one to course correct as they go along as opposed to getting close to the end of the year and suddenly realising they are way off-target. To help with the course-correction, it helps to have say quarterly self-audits to check on how things are going.

4-    4- Accountability: Find someone to hold you accountable to your goal or to walk with you through the journey. It helps a lot, especially when the initial excitement of the journey has worn off and the effort is discouraging.

5-   5- Have a solid reason why: What is the reason behind achieving the goal that has been set? The strength of that reason will determine how hard one is willing to work at achieving the goal.

So there you have it; a way to ensure that the resolutions made actually come to pass.