Here we go into the New Year with everyone having their list of resolutions for the upcoming year. Does anyone ever accomplish all of their New Year’s resolutions? I think that most of our society fails to fulfill those resolutons because there are steps you should take in order to make sure you follow through with your ideas.
Step 1 – Start with one principle resolution that will improve your quality of life the most and work on just that one. By having too many resolutions, it becomes increasingly difficult to change multiple behavior patterns all at the same time. Once you accomplish the first goal then you can proceed on to making another resolution.
Step 2 – You should break the change down into manageable steps. If your goal is to lose 100lbs., you should break it down into 10lb. increments rather than try to achieve the goal all at once. It might be helpful to graph out the process into smaller cycles or chart your progress. This way if you suffer minor setbacks you can look at the overall goal rather than the minor setbacks.
Step 3 – You should visualize yourself achieving your goal. If you goal is weight loss, try putting up old photos of yourself when you were in peak condition to help motivate you throughout the process. Another solution is listen to audio tapes that are motivating and encouraging to help achieve the mindset that you can reach your goals.
Step 4 – Tell others your resolution and ask them to help you along the way. If you tell other people what you hope to accomplish, it is a great motivator to keep you focused on your task at hand. Your friends might have similar goals and could help meet you at the gym or go for a walk together. Another option would be to hire a qualified personal trainer who will help keep you accountable to show up for appointments.
Step 5 – If you have a moment of weakness or temporary lack of judgement, allow yourself to have small rewards along the way for achieving milestone progress. Everyone has a moment of weakness, but you have to get back on track afterwards and keep striving to achieve your resolution.
Step 6 – This might be the most important step, which is to have faith in yourself. Your body is a miraculous machine in that it can adapt and change according to the nutrients and training that you put into it. It is never to late to start exercising and eating correctly to improve your quality of life.