Happy New Year – Same Old You?

It’s that time of year again!  The beginning of the New Year and time to make resolutions!  Time to resolve that this year will be better than last year; that long-desired goals will finally be achieved!  Time to make massive changes for the better.

Here’s the bad news, which you have probably heard over and over – over 90% of resolutions are abandoned by January 31!  For most of us, it’s really “Happy New Year … Same Old You”

As someone who is an avid goal-setter, and who welcomes the New Year as a time of fresh, new energy and focus, I have found 3 simple techniques that increase your chances of actually achieving your goals.  These are:

1. Discover your WHY
2. Simplify the HOW
3. Release the WHEN

Discover your WHY:

One way of looking at the word “resolution” is to see it as a composite “re” (again) and “solution”.  So a resolution is a solution to some problem we are experiencing.

Let me illustrate:  For many years, like millions of people, I resolved to “lose weight”. And like most, I arrived at the end of the year the same weight or heavier.  That is until I started to question WHY I wanted to lose weight.  What I discovered about myself was that when I had been happiest with my body was when I was very fit.  My desire was less about my losing weight and really about how I love to feel when I am exercising, and how much I love to be fit.  And so my resolutions now focus on fitness instead of weight loss – running a marathon or half-marathon, learning the Ashtanga Primary yoga series or practicing yoga 3 times per week.

It’s your WHY that keeps you going.  It’s my WHY of being fit that gets me up to run early the morning after I have overindulged in the most divine dessert!

One note of caution – if you cannot figure out your WHY then my suggestion is to drop that resolution for maybe it’s not really important to you.

Simplify the HOW!

For most of us, our resolutions are MASSIVE – huge, ambitious goals made in the euphoria of the fireworks and celebrations!

When I checked the dictionary for the meaning and root of “resolution”, I discovered something very interesting about the etymology: the word “resolution” comes from the Latin “resolutio” which is the “process of reducing things into simpler forms”

This gives us a clue into the second technique. Making a resolution is about simplifying, not making more onerous or difficult.  To keep a resolution, we must change something that we have been doing to something else.  In other words, we must break our habits.  One way of simplifying the resolution is to choose one new, simple daily habit that is in line with your resolution and commit to that and only that.  Here’s an example – if your goal is to improve your financial state, one simple habit to adopt is to write down every dollar that you spend every day for the month of January.  And that’s all you commit to do!

Now, you may say “But Marguerite, that’s not enough”.  Of course it’s not – but if you commit to changing one small habit per month, by the end of the year you will have changed 12 habits!  Once the habits are aligned with your resolution, you WILL see the results!

Release the WHEN

January 1 is a magical day in our minds.  It’s the day when we begin anew, when we transform and recreate ourselves magically by December 31.  We have specific actions and timelines.  We start off with a BANG!  And then one day, we are too tired to get up and run; we pig out on a ½ gallon of ice cream; we overcharge our credit card.  We go back to our same old habits. And once that happens, we are tempted to stay in that known comfortable-yet-uncomfortable place.  We sigh …. “Next year” and we give up.  Well, guess what?  “Next year” starts the very next day.  Every day is the beginning of a new year. Every day offers us the opportunity to begin anew and get refocused on our goals.  We just need to release the “WHEN”, our attachment to January 1 as that magical start date.

Making resolutions at the start of the New Year is a good thing.  But it is only good if they are achieved.  If they are not, then 2011 will simply be the year of the Same Old You.

Try keeping it simple this year – set your goals, but know your WHY, simplify your HOW, release the WHEN

Will THIS be the year when you keep your resolutions?   Time will tell …