You may have made New Year's resolutions before and had a small success with them, or failed to achieve your goal altogether. Millions of people across the world make promises to themselves at New Year. Those promises range from quitting smoking to losing a lot of weight.
Unfortunately a large percentage of those people fail to achieve their goal. This year you aren't going to be one of them because you have my help!
I am going to share with you my top 5 tips to make sure you reach your goals and this time next year you can move onto the next resolution until you have none left to make. These tips are straightforward but require a level of commitment from you.
Let's go:
Make Achievable Goals
This might seem a bit too straightforward but a lot of people making resolutions simply don't follow this rule. How do you tell if a goal is achievable? By writing down the steps you are going to take in order to succeed.
An example is a 40 year old man who wants to lose 50 pounds in the New Year. Sounds quite reasonable doesn't it? Until you consider that the man in question was exactly 50 pounds lighter when they were 25. It is quite unrealistic to want the body you had at 25 when you are 40.
This sort of unrealistic goal puts unneeded stress on you and is an example of a more long term goal. What he (and you) should do is to focus on the short term goals that lead up to a long term goal. For example, focus on losing the first 10 pounds. Now, when you have lost 10 pounds, you can feel proud of your achievement and continue to focus on the next 10 pounds and so on.
Keep a note of both long term goals and the short term ones you will achieve on the way to help with motivation. Tick smaller goals off as you go so you can see how far you've come.
Remind Yourself daily
Once your resolution is written down you are going to “program” yourself to succeed by thinking about your goal every single day. I tried writing my goal of losing 10 pounds down on sticky notes on placing them in places around the house where I will see them every day, such as on my computer and on my fridge.
This will really help you to focus on success and not forget the promise you made yourself. I also want you to visualize succeeding. Every. Single. Day. It only takes 5 minutes a day which you can squeeze in the morning when you wake up, or even on the lavatory if you really can't spare another 5 minutes!
Imagine yourself those 10 pounds slimmer,or whatever your goal is, in detail.
- Imagine finally getting there and reaching your goal.
- Think of the feelings of happiness and satisfaction that will arise.
- Make the visualization more realistic by adding in sensory information such as feeling your flat stomach and hearing compliments.
- Imagine letting your friends and family know about your weight loss and hearing the congratulations.
This method of visualization is also known as self hypnosis because it has a powerful effect on your mind. It really helps to motivate you and keep you on track.
Find a Partner
For the worried, don't panic as I'm not suggesting you cheat on your husband or wife! What I am suggesting is finding a friend or family member with similar goals to team up with. Someone you can share your successes and failures with, to motivate you and help keep you on track. They get the same benefits from you too.
One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of people say they are going to do X or Y but they don't really have their heart in it. Make sure you don't pick one of these people to team up with.
Tell EVERYONE
Let everybody possible know what you are going to do. This means that if you don't reach your goal you have to tell all of these people that you have let yourself down. Nobody likes to admit defeat and I imagine neither do you.
Make A Bet
I don't know if you are a betting person, but if you are intrigued by this option then by all means go for it. Find your loudest and most obnoxious friend and make a bet with them saying if you lose X pounds they have to pay you $100 (Or less if you aren't the risky type). Of course, if you fail then you have to pay them.
This is a real motivation booster for some people as although $100 may not seem like an awful lot, it is significant enough to make you really want to succeed. Up the stakes if you need to. The most important point here is that if you choose your most annoyingly obnoxious friend to make a bet with then if you fail, you will never hear the end of it from them.
An alternative method is giving someone you trust the money up front with the agreement that you will only get it back if you succeed.
Those are my top 5 tips to making sure you stick to a New Year's resolution. I'm absolutely positive that if you really motivate yourself, carry out the daily visualization and remind yourself of your goal daily, you will make it this year.
Author: Aileen
Hi, I'm Aileen, the owner of Diet Pill Judge. I have personally tried loads of diet pills over the years and found that only a few of them really work.
My background is in science, so I set out to find supplements that have scientific evidence behind them and which I can confidently recommend.
