5 Reasons Why New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work and What to Do Instead
Do you even remember what you promised yourself last year?
Goodbye past year, welcome new year and its… new year’s resolutions!
What are your new goals for this new year? Let me guess, you’ve already forgotten most of what you promised yourself last year, right?
Well, if it’s anything like last year, you will probably fail miserably.
Don’t despair though — there are other methods to achieve self-improvement and goal setting that work much better than New Year’s Resolutions.
In this blog post, we’ll explore five reasons why New Year’s Resolutions don’t work and what to do instead.
You Overestimate What You Can Do in a Year
When we plan, we tend to be overly positive, defining more than we are capable of. We set these huge goals for ourselves and when we inevitably don’t achieve them, we feel like failures.
Solution: Set realistic goals that you can achieve. Don’t try to do everything at once; break your goal down into smaller steps that you can complete over a year.
You Divide Your Time Incorrectly
How are you going to divide your time? In quarters? Simultaneously? Each case is specific and needs to be measured.
If you’re not careful, you might spend all your time on one task and neglect other important areas of your life.
Solution: Schedule out your day and week ahead of time, allotting time for each task.
Identify your most important tasks and do them first in the day and week.
If something comes up and you can’t complete a task, reschedule it for later.
If It’s Important, You Shouldn’t Wait for Next Year
There’s no time like the present! If there’s something important that you want to do, don’t wait until next year. Start now and make progress every day.
Solution: Take action now! Identify what you need to do to achieve your goal and start doing it today.
Don’t put it off until tomorrow; Tomorrow never comes.
You Don’t Put the Mishaps on the Account
Contingencies will happen and make your resolutions more difficult, try to predict them.
Things such as sickness, work overloads family emergencies can easily derail your plans if you’re not prepared.
Solution: Plan for contingencies and have a backup plan ready to go if something comes up.
If you know that there’s a high chance of something happening that will prevent you from completing your goal, then have a workaround ready to go.
You Don’t Set Proactive Goals
Instead of setting goals such as “I want to lose weight” or “I want to save money,” set proactive goals instead.
These are goals that involve taking action to achieve the desired outcome.
For example, rather than saving money, set a goal of creating a budget and sticking to it.
Solution: Set proactive goals by identifying what you need to do to achieve your goal. Take action now and make progress every day.
This new year, set realistic goals that you can achieve, and don’t put them off until tomorrow! Create a plan for contingencies and have a backup plan ready to go if something comes up
Finally, identify what needs to be done to achieve your goal and take action now!
Good luck with your new self-improvement plans; I hope this blog post helped point you in the right direction towards success.
