Screw New Year’s Resolutions — 7 Steps to Make Intentions for 2024
This is how you will make 2024 better than 2023
Setting goals and ways to improve you and your life…great!
Doing this with a New Year’s Resolution (NYR) is not so great. In fact, you’re probably wasting your time and doomed to failure and feeling like a loser.
Recent studies show that 92% of people fail at keeping their resolutions with 80% quitting by mid-February and 25% giving up in the first week.
But it isn’t you, or me that’s the problem, it’s the approach.
This year, screw New Year’s resolutions and instead set intentions for 2024.
This is a method I have used successfully after learning from so many others who succeeded.
It’s smarter. It’s more doable. It’s successful.
First, the New Year’s resolution pipe dream
“I’m going to go to the gym four days a week for the rest of the year”.
“I’m going to clean up my finances.”
“I’m going to eat healthier and cut out the crap foods.”
“I’m going to be a more thoughtful and loving person.”
“I’m going to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”
There is so much missing from this approach that you’re destined to lose while gym owners thrive selling memberships that won’t be used.
Tracy Kennedy of LifeHack does a great job of laying out why New Year resolutions fail (which aligns with mine).
1. Your goals aren’t specific enough (no details or deadlines).
2. No accountability (no one you are responsible or accountable to).
3. You’ll lose focus (it’s easy to blow it off and find excuses).
4. Your environment is supportive of your goals (quitting drinking with drinking friends).
5. You either don’t really want it or consider why it’s important (no focus on your “Why”).
6. You underestimate what it will take (you didn’t think it through and set expectations).
7. The resolution is out of sync with who you are. (Your false self or expectations of others).
Here is a better way that makes so much more sense.
Think from the end
As opposed to, “I’m going to go to the gym four days a week for the rest of the year”, instead focus on and write down what the ultimate goal, outcome and standard is.
Where do you want to be, how do you want to feel and what changes do you want to successfully make by this time next year?
For instance, “One year from now I am going to be in much better shape. I will love the results that I am getting. I will have changed my eating habits and now I love them. I will be exercising a lot more and enjoy it. I will feel great and love myself for it.”
See the difference?
You’re focused on outcomes and your why, not just the what and how which alone have no compelling motivation behind them.
The most important question to ask and answer first is “Why?”.
Why do I want to do this?
Why is it worth it?
Why must I do it?
Why will I be motivated/driven to accomplish it?
Then the “what” and “how” will fall into place.
What do I need to do and how?
What will it be like to accomplish this? How will I feel?
When you know and focus on your why and how achieving your goals and results will feel and what you and your life will be like as a result, you will find the true automatic motivation to succeed and certainly exceed the lamo-blamo results of most resolutionists.
You are thinking from the end. You have identified and connected with what’s important.
You understand why you need and want to do it and the results you will enjoy.
7 Steps to succeed at your New Year intentions
That’s the mega-step #1. Now let’s take Tracy’s list of why resolutions fail and apply intentional success methods to them.
1. Goals aren’t specific enough: Have a clear vision of what is going to be involved. Be real about how difficult it may be. The more intermediate goals (I will take a 20-minute brisk walk today) and deadlines (I will have lost 10 pounds by May 1 in a healthy way) the better. Make sure those intermediate goals add up to the results you want for one year from now.
2. No accountability: I believe in having an accountabilitybuddy. Someone who you make a promise to and/or someone who shares the intention (e.g., get in shape) with. When you make a promise and tell others about your intention, you will do anything to avoid looking like a shmuck. When you have a partner, you are driven to show up and do it.
3. You Lose Focus: Write down your goals and your whys. When you thoroughly write them down, think them through and imagine the results and how you will emotionally feel about success, this all triggers the creation of new neural pathways that your brain believes to be reality. Then your Reticular Activating System kicks in to help you make it so.
Also, writing these goals, methods and tasks forces your brain to slow down, focus and think it through. You then have something to continually if not daily refer back to.
4. Your environment is no good: Trying to quit smoking or drinking while living with a smoker or drinker will seriously work against you. Same with friends and colleagues you hang out with.
Control what you can and get the support from whom you need it. Also, consider how to set up your environment for success. If you want to improve your diet, focus on what you buy and don’t buy at the grocery store.
5. You don’t want it or don’t know why: This is all about focusing on your why. This is the result I intend to have. This is my reason for doing it. Focusing on the why will motivate you and help push you past temptation and toward doing what you have to do.
6. You underestimate what it will take: When you start out, consider the most challenging scenario. Be realistic leaning toward the worst case. Know that you will be challenged, discouraged, and tempted and from time to time you will fail.
All of this happens to everyone. You will expect it and push forward. It’s not about avoiding failure and lapses, it’s about what you do the day after.
7. It’s just not who I am: There are two situations for this. One is making a resolution because you think you’re supposed to, or you’re being pressured. The second one is a resolution the true you is desiring but the “false you” is resisting.
If a loved one is on your butt to get healthy, unless you find the worthwhile “WHY” within yourself for doing it, you will probably fail and even resent the other person.
If you can find a WHY that resonates with you plus the caring WHY (it will make them happy), then you’ve got a chance.
The second challenge deals with our self-limiting beliefs that often are old or even untrue. Be very aware of this. If deep down inside you are telling yourself you really need and want something, odds are you do. Connect with your true “why”.
To help you with this read my article, “9 Ways to Become the New You by Being the Real You”.
Auld lang syne
Out with the old and in with the new…you.
So, go ahead and make a New Year’s resolution. But have that resolution be to make your New Year’s intentions.
They can be made 24/7/365. The point is to make them, adhere to them, succeed and thrive.
I’ll be working on mine this holiday weekend. But then again, I work on them all the time.
What a concept!
Happy New Year…every day.
Looking for a New Way Forward in your life? You can get my free “Launch Yourself Get Started Guide” by going to www.NewWayFWD.com.
