4 Steps That Can Make You Stick to Your New Year Resolution
These steps may take you closer to your goals
Years fly, people cry: hoping the new year will be different; hope turns into disappointment because the year is just a number; a number that changes every 365 days. If they hope the new year to be different, they must be different because until they change, nothing changes. Years will continue to fly, and they will cry. (this was my first shot at poetry so forgive me if it’s bad)
New year is that time of the year when people make resolutions — resolutions to achieve their goals.
People stick to their resolutions for the first few days of the new year; People are excited; novelty has its own seductiveness, but as time passes and people realise that they need to act in line with the resolution day after day, they quit. People fall back to old habits, and before they realise it, it’s the end of another year, time for another resolution.
How can you change yourself to make your life better?
Of course, people can change themselves and lead a better life. How can you do it? I don’t have the answers, and I am no self-help guru to offer you a definite path to achieve your goals. But I have observed a few factors, that if you are aware of, may help you stick longer with your goals and help you achieve your goals.
4 steps
Why you are doing what you are doing?
What Simon Sinek calls “Start with Why”? Unless you have a reason to do what you aim to do, you will find it difficult to stick to. Especially when circumstances get tough, you need a strong “why” to get through the tough circumstance.
Why are you writing? Are you writing for claps, money, followers? These things can motivate you, but in the long run, you need something that can sustain your writing interest. Something along the lines of, “I write because people get to learn something new from my articles, along with it I am also getting better at writing.”
Ask yourself this seminal question “ Will this help me in the long run?”
Humans just live instant gratification. How many times I have diverted from writing an article to watching videos and movies, and once I have watched the video or movie, I have regret. Regret that I could have used my time better. The short term pleasure leaves a long term regret.
And it leads me to the next step
Have a short term reward mechanism?
Plan a work-break schedule. Humans can’t work continuously and continually. Once you have finished writing an article, you can watch movies or videos. Try delaying your gratification or indulging in your diversion until you finish your work.
Step by step
Trying to complete the work all at once is a recipe for disaster. Break your task into small chunks. Finish a chunk and then move to the next chunk. I have written an article on this
Don’t think too far ahead. When you are writing an article, your mind should only focus on writing the article in the best possible way. Don’t think about the claps, success rate etc. Finish your article, and move on to your next task.
To sum up
- Have a why
- Ask yourself Will this help me in the long run?
- Have a short term reward mechanism
- Take it one step at a time
