Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions Alive! – Guest Blog

On New Year’s Eve the clock struck midnight.  Firework displays lit the sky.  Celebrations with family and friends were in full swing and you may have even had your midnight kiss from that special someone.  2012 kicked in and with it comes the excitement of newness and dreams.  You make your New Year’s Resolutions with a promise to do something brilliant!

As January rolls by we settle ourselves into the New Year.  The New Year’s Resolutions are strong at play.  It may be something practical like joining the gym, or stocking up with fruit and veg.  Or it may be something less transparent, like creating behavioural change in an element of your life.

History tells most of us that New Year’s Resolutions don’t last!  You may move the marker for a few weeks in January but your resolutions are soon forgotten.

You start the year with a clean slate and the best intentions but soon enough old habits creep in and you revert back to past behaviour.  So the question is;

How do you create New Year’s resolutions that result in sustainable changes?

• Commit to your New Year’s Resolutions all year long.  Put in place some trigger points throughout the year that will remind you.  This may be a monthly reminder in your work diary, or in your phone, or on a wall planner.  Set aside an hour a month to reflect on your goals and reconnect with them.
• Chunk them down.  It’s one thing to know what the destination should be, but the destination is fruitless without mapping out the journey.  Create small achievable goals that will ultimately take you to the destination.  Once you have created the smaller tasks, assign each task with an achievable timeline so you can easily track your progress.
• Create a relapse and maintenance strategy for yourself.  We are human after all and it is difficult to maintain new behaviours.  By creating a relapse strategy you can choose to put yourself back on track easily rather than giving up.  Anticipate obstacles or challenges you may face in achieving your goals and create a strategy around it before it happens so you know how to pick yourself up.
• Control your outcomes.  Make yourself accountable.  The New Year’s Resolutions you set for yourself are personal to you.  Own them!  No one else can achieve them for you.
• Celebrate Success.  Reward yourself along the way.  At each point of achieving the small chunked down goals, give yourself a reward.  You might have small rewards each month and then a bigger quarterly reward.  It is important to acknowledge your achievements and saviour that sense of accomplishment of creating change in your life.

Take a different attitude to your New Years Resolutions in 2012 and follow these tips to achieve your goals!  If you do, when it comes to 2013 you can set your sights even higher and New Years Resolutions will become more than just a drunken promise at midnight.  Make your new years resolutions stick all year long, chunk them down, create a relapse strategy, take control, and celebrate often.  Achieve real change in your life in 2012.

Kylie Neal is a founder & Principal Coach of Thriving Minds, based in Sydney. She holds a Masters degree in Coaching Psychology from Sydney University and, a Bachelors degree in Psychology.  Kylie’s passion for coaching started from an early age as she was constantly intrigued by people’s motivations and perceptions. She was amazed by the feeling of achievement and curious about the drivers of what made people tick. Thriving Minds http://www.thrivingminds.com.au/ LovinYou affiliate http://www.lovinyou.com.au