The Secret to Maintaining Your New Year’s Resolutions? Negotiation.
According to several estimates, a mere 8% of people (nearly 40% of Americans make New Year’s resolutions) actually maintain and fulfill their New Year’s resolutions . Sound familiar? If you only accomplished 8% of the work that was laid out for you by your employer, I would have to assume you would not be employed for long. So, why is it that when people set goals for themselves, as opposed to being assigned by others, they are so quick to give up?
The fact that you make your New Year’s resolution, and not your boss, may be what makes fulfilling your New Year’s dreams so difficult. The secret to making and keeping resolutions lies in your own willingness to negotiate with yourself, and to be your own boss, as it were. The ability to understand your time, energy, and capabilities is an essential part to understanding how you’ll reach your goals, and successful negotiations with yourself will help you actually achieve your goals. Here are 5 tips to improve your negotiation skills, and help you achieve your 2018 New Year’s resolutions.
1.Talk to yourself. I ride the NYC subway so I’m not suggesting that you do this in public, although it would be a great way to snag a seat on a crowded train. Communication that is open and honest is the key to all successful negotiations. Remember, a good negotiation should leave both parties feeling like they had their interests factored into the decision. Having an open conversation with yourself (in your head is perfectly fine if aloud doesn’t feel like you) about how much time or effort you can commit to your resolution is key. Having this dialogue will also help you select the items that are most accomplishable and in line with your overarching goals of self-improvement.
2. Time management. After negotiating with yourself over WHAT you will be doing, it is also important to remember WHEN. A happy working experience is often based on managing both expectations and deadlines. View your calendar like a contract- if something needs to be adjusted, you’ll need to find the time or capital to make it up elsewhere. If you know you typically work late and are looking to fit in a commitment to the gym, assess whether waking up earlier in the day is in the cards for you. If it isn’t, try and find a high intensity regimen, this way you can maximize your efficiency, even though you’ll have less time in the gym.
3. Set measurable goals by pre-planning. It’s easy to throw out a resolution like losing weight or going to the gym more often (some of the most common resolutions) however, leaving open-ended and vague resolutions is one of the easiest ways to ensure failure. Make real plans to ensure that you understand what your goals are. If it’s weight loss, set monthly or even weekly targets for what you are hoping to accomplish; prepare a meal and exercise plan now, not once it creeps up on you. Preparation is the biggest key to success in negotiation, and in this case, maintaining resolutions. Having all of your information and tactics laid out in front of you will break down mountainous tasks into individual, achievable steps. By utilizing your free time to establish a framework for yourself, it is much easier to manage expectations once a project begins.
4. Pivot. In life you can’t always plan for the unexpected challenges that may arise. Having the flexibility to redirect your energies will allow you to maintain your goals while accommodating for unforeseen circumstances. Sh*t happens, but you shouldn’t let it derail your overall goal. Keeping some wiggle room while you lay out your plan is great for allowing makeup time if you fall behind. This is especially true while negotiating. Factors will always arise that you and your counterparts may not have accounted for, having pivot options and the go-with-the-flow mindset will make for a much smoother accomodation of those curveballs.
Lastly, and arguably most importantly:
5. Emotional awareness. It is important to set aside time for disappointment, because inevitably at some point during your year, or your negotiation, you will be forced to utilize tip 4 and pivot. The results of the pivot will depend almost entirely on your emotional response. By establishing a finite amount of time (20 minutes, according to Dr. Beth Fisher-Yoshida) for self-pity you are utilizing all of the previous tips to ensure continued success. Optimize this time to go through each of the previous 4 steps. Talk to yourself, determine whether your goals that you set out are still achievable or whether or not outside circumstances have changed. If your circumstances have changed, assess your time management, ask yourself “How can I modify my resolution or schedule to achieve my goal?” Use your grief period to begin your time management planning again. After you’ve spoken to yourself and assessed the time that you have available, start to mentally plan out what your new schedule will look like. Finally, pivot. Make the move, embrace the change. At the end of the day or in the case of a resolution, the year, take a look back at how you emotionally handled the situations that arose. Did you stick to your plan despite changes? Were you able to keep your head up when your schedule got out of hand? And most importantly, at the end of your year did you feel like you accomplished what you set out to do? Emotional awareness is critical to both resolutions and negotiation. Often changes will occur during even the most routine negotiations and your playbook will need to be scrapped. Having the emotional stability to accept these changes and face your new challenges head-on will result in stronger, more successful, and fulfilling negotiations and hopefully a completed list of New Year’s resolutions.
Happy New Year!
