Many people will drop to pursue their New Year resolution by end of January!
I’ve been into the same situation before where I found myself straying further and further away from the goals that I’ve set by end of January. Don’t get me wrong! Both you and I did set SMART goals. The only problem is some of us didn’t get to set the HOW. The below are 3 important steps that I’ve improvised to help the situation:
- To have an executable plan
I convert the goals into actionable plans and break it down into chew-able bite size to execute daily if not weekly. Then mark it down on my daily calendar to remind myself.
For example, one of my goals is to read 12 books by end of the year; I don’t break it down into 1 book a month. Instead, I break it down into reading 10 pages daily before I go to bed. Of course, you may choose to do it either early in the morning or during lunch. The accumulation of reading 10 pages daily will lead to finishing 300 pages a month, which are the pages of an average book.
- To change norm, habit and mind set
This is crucial if we happened to miss our goals repetitively year after year. We can’t expect different results by doing the same. I realized that it is not the inaction that caused my failure. Instead, I ought to disrupt my pattern and change my modus operandi in order to succeed. Working harder is not the solution but working smarter is.
For example, one of my goals is to reduce body fat percentage to below 20% by end of the year. Besides investing in getting a body fat composition weighing scale and get to record weekly to monitor my body fat, I ought to also look into changing my eating and exercise habits. I realized I had a crush in eating cookies as snack between meals. Now I have to cut down these sweets by substituting with natural fibre snacks such as carrot and celery sticks, and lowering my carbohydrate portion by substituting it with more leafy vegetables and protein for my meals.
- To track progress & reward timely
I need to put action to the things that matter most in my daily routines. I block out time slots in my calendar to give priority to my resolutions. I do stock taking on each item and reward myself at end of each week or month.
For example, one of my goals is to exercise 30 min daily; I set it at the beginning of each day so that I could complete this task first before other thing. I give myself a treat on weekend if I have completed 7 workouts that week.
So, if you have just stated your New Year resolutions at the beginning of the year I urge you to revisit them and do an audit on whether the above 3 steps are in place to guide you. Let’s make good use of the first month of the year to enhance further your New Year resolutions.
