New Years Resolution

Set a New Year Goal That Is Not Beyond Your Reach

New Year’s resolutions are made every year by millions of people.  Unfortunately, many if not most of them are never completed.  If you plan to make a resolution, you may want to set a New Year goal that is not beyond your reach.

Your ultimate New Year’s resolution may be to learn a new language or how to dance all forms of ballroom dance.  However, an unreasonable goal is to assume you could do either of those in a short period of time.  Some goals are possible within a month, such as losing five pounds, but learning how to speak fluent Chinese in that amount of time absolutely is not.

It is important for us to plan for the future so we’re not aimlessly wandering through life.  Sometimes setting long-range goals can be overwhelming because they’re so far out in the future that we doubt if we’ll ever meet them.  If there aren’t intermediate goals along the way to your ultimate goal, it will be too easy for you to lose focus and give up.

Instead of having just the one, long-range goal, consider having small goals that you can work on – even on a daily basis.  This will help you by allowing you to feel a sense of accomplishment when you meet one of the smaller goals, as well as letting you know you’re on the right track to reach your goal.

How do you break down one big goal into several smaller goals?  That all depends upon what your goal is.  You can choose best what you need to do each day to help keep you on track.  Don’t let your gaze go too far down the trail that you have laid out for yourself.  If you don’t stay focused on the day at hand, you might miss something wonderful along the way.

Remember that reaching a goal is much like going on a journey.  If you’re too focused on the destination, you’ll miss the beauty along the way.  You can stop along the way and smell the roses rather than speeding along the path you’re on and missing them entirely.  By setting smaller goals that you can reach, you’ll be moving toward your goal and be much more likely to actually reach it.

Don’t give up if things don’t work out exactly like you’ve planned.  Things in life happen that may keep you from reaching a small goal in the time you had hoped.  When things settle back down you can pick up where you left off.  It may take longer to reach your goal than you wanted, but that’s no reason to give up.

Give yourself a reward when you’ve reached a smaller goal, rather than waiting to complete the large goal.  Knowing you’ll have a small reward when you have met a goal may be the impetus you need to keep going when you feel discouraged.

When you have a goal in mind, consider the steps you can take.  Set New Year’s goals that are not beyond your reach.  Reward yourself when you’ve reached a small goal and then keep going to the next one.

New Years Resolution

A New Year, A New You

Each New Year millions of Americans make resolutions to change things about their lives. They may want to lose weight, use their time more wisely, conquer clutter in their homes, or take time to learn a new skill. With a new year, a new you is possible if you set goals and work toward achieving them.

Some people haven’t been very good at setting goals or at attaining them. These ideas for setting goals may be what you need to make a new and improved you become a reality.

What is it about yourself that you would like to change in the coming year? Decide what your final goal will be, but don’t fixate on that final goal. Instead, think about small steps that you can take that will lead you, ultimately, to that final goal.

Don’t beat yourself up if you’ve made New Year’s resolutions in the past but haven’t succeeded. The beauty of a new year is that it’s a chance for new beginnings. Start out thinking positive about what you want to change; don’t think back to the failures. Try one more time to affect the change you want to see in yourself.

Even if there are several things you want to work on or change in your life, it’s a good idea to focus on only one aspect at a time. Too many resolutions will cause you not only to fail, but to fail at all of them. You’ve felt bad enough about failing with one resolution in the past, so don’t set yourself up for a fall in relation to all of them.

Make your own resolution because it’s something you want to do, not because someone is pressing you to change. If you truly want to change something about yourself, you may ask your friends and family to encourage and cheer you on, but don’t make a resolution based on what they want. The decision to change has to come from within.

Write down your goal, what it is you want to accomplish, and set a time frame to master it in. Give yourself time if you have a good deal of weight to lose. You didn’t gain the weight overnight; you can’t expect to lose it as quickly. Set small, measurable, and attainable goals.

Remember that New Year’s resolutions are goals that we set for ourselves that will hopefully give us the courage to step out and change ourselves in some way. If you have a day that you blow your resolution, it’s not the end of the world. Pick up the next day right back where you were when you fell, then do your best to reach your individual goals and you’ll be that much closer to the final goal you set.