New Year Resolutions

A very happy new year to all our readers. Today, I want to discuss about the most trending topic around this time every year, NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS.

Source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/12/31/new-years-resolutions-you-can-keep/

New year resolutions are something that has gained a lot of popularity with the advent of social media, but statistics show that only 8% of the people achieve the goals they set at the beginning of the year, by the end of the year.

Why do we fail in achieving our resolutions?

1.      Your goals are too big

Source: https://vitagaloreallure.com/big-goals/

This is one of the main reasons for our failure. We set goals that are too big like:

I will lose 20 kgs this year or I will not eat meat and go full-on vegan.

Why we do this? because it satisfies our ego. It feels good when we tell others that  plan to lose 20 kgs this year than just telling that I want to lose a couple of kgs.  

And why we fail is because reality does not care about your ego. Ok, Real talk alert!!!

No matter whatever you start with, you are not going to see any substantial changes in the first few weeks. And by then, the initial boost of motivation that you have whenever starting anything new, dies out and you most likely give up.

Ok, blah blah blah, just tell me the solution already! 

The solution is… yes you guessed it right… don’t start at all! 

Just kidding

What we can do is set small goals and limit the time frame for it. So instead of saying that I will lose 20 kgs in a year, it is better you say, well, let me try losing a kg in the first month.

I know, it does not sound very interesting, but it sure is achievable! 

2.      You lack the habit for it

 

Source: https://www.blinkist.com/magazine/posts/becoming-productive-isnt-goal-habit

How many times has it happened that you plan a workout plan for every day but just can’t follow it regularly and give up after a few weeks?

This is where building the habit comes in. Let me give you an example.

So this happened to a friend of mine. He wanted to get fit and he tried many diet plans, workouts and what not. But he wasn’t just able to stick to any of it.

So, I told him to visit a trainer at a gym nearby. And that was his calling, he lost 10 kgs in the next 3 months and got fit. So, what hocus-pocus did this trainer do on him?

The trainer simply asked him to come to the gym at 7 a.m. sharp, every day. And when he would arrive, the trainer would tell him to go back and come again tomorrow.

This was his trick! He made him do that for 21 days. He just made him visit the gym for the first 21 days.

You weren’t expecting that right? You would be expecting some master speech on motivation or a ground-breaking workout plan.

But that’s what it is. The trainer helped my friend build the habit of coming to the gym every day prior to any workout or diet plan.

And this is what you need to do as well. Firstly, start off by something very simple like writing a word every day or just wearing your running shoes and getting out of your house. Keep it simple and easy!

Secondly, just do that every day. What this does is it helps you build a habit. Once that habit of writing just a word or wearing those shoes is built, it becomes a lot easier for you to take the next step since now the first step has become second nature to you.

And as they say, “The first step is the hardest”. So, make that first step your habit, and you have increased the probability of achieving your goal by 10 times already!

3.      Your goals are too vague

Source: https://www.webintravel.com/wit-day-one-c-change-confusion/

Do not have goals that are too general like I want to eat healthy or I want to read more. 

These goals tend to fail more because the goals aren’t clear in your head, they are too abstract. You don’t have a metric to track your progress. You just don’t know how near/far you are from your goal.

So what you should do instead is have specific goals, like I will read 10 novels, or I will eat veggies 5 times a week. Moreover, it helps a lot to write these goals down and tracking your progress regularly.

But mind you that this is your long-term goal so you shouldn’t get intimidated by it. Start off with techniques as described earlier and check regularly how near you are to your long-term goal.

Conclusion

In conclusion, don’t be too strict with yourself. Let there be room for the uncertainties in life. We had a lot of goals for 2020 but many of them weren’t achieved due to the pandemic. So, do we need to beat ourselves for it?

 Absolutely NOT! Because that's how life is- it does not care for our plans and goals. So, what we can do is work towards our goals with the intent to improve ourselves every day and surrender to the randomness of life.