A Better Way To Make New Year’s Resolutions
A quick search online reveals a lot of advice and tips about New Year’s resolutions, in particular making them, keeping them, which ones are popular.
However much of this advice comes from writers and not people familiar with goal setting and goal achievement and proven personal change management methods.
Many people fall into a trap year after year of making a resolution or several resolutions and then pooping out on them within a few weeks. Some resolutions never even really get going, even the same ones made repeatedly! There are a lot of reasons for this, and explaining them is part of our mission with Resolution Velcro. So without further ado, let’s start with comparing the way a typical resolution is made to a better way, the Resolution Velcro way.
The Resolution Top 10 List is not your friend. It is however, an editors best friend. I’ve submitted plenty of articles online and to print media to know for a fact that editors love lists. Their readers enjoy them, they are quick to produce, easy to proof and smack of substance. However, where’s the beef?
If you find yourself choosing a New Year’s resolution based on a Top 10 list, you’re doing yourself a disservice. We all know that resolutions have to do with change. It’s been proven that like grief, making personal changes has a clear and distinct process to it. So just picking from a list is not going to resonate with your emotional being enough for you to fully engage in that process.
Even if you have given careful thought and consideration to your choice of resolution you can still be too general or too vague to help yourself facilitate your own success. For example, losing weight. That’s on every list, but it’s not specific enough to be meaningful. Lose 10 pounds by March 31st is much better. It’s more definite and concrete and something you can begin to hold yourself accountable to.
Can you give me an example of a resolution you’ve made that was too vague? Now how can you reframe it using the formula I shared? Please leave your comments below!
