It’s Time to Make New Year’s Resolutions! Are You Ready?

 

Included in the list of the top 5 Google searches for 2017 compiled by iQuanti were Get Healthy, Get Organized and Spend Less/Save More. I wasn’t the least surprised, because there have been variations of those subjects on every weekly and monthly women’s magazine cover for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, in spite of the best intentions, more than 90% of people fall short of keeping their New Year’s resolutions.

So, what exactly is a resolution?

Resolution (rezəˈlo͞oSH(ə)n/)

Noun: a firm decision to do or not to do something.

Synonyms: intention, resolve, decision, intent, aim, plan, commitment, pledge, promise

Know the Difference Between Resolutions and Goals

When you make a resolution, you are intentionally determining a course of action, making a commitment and following through with a purpose. Resolutions and intentions are more in the here and now. You can set daily intentions every morning to help set up the day ahead. Unlike goals, intentions are more of how you want the day to go and how you want to feel about it. An intention would be, “TODAY I will have a great day. I will make healthy food choices and I will walk 30 minutes.” Whereas a goal is something that you work on until it is complete, such as “I will walk 30 minutes a day for 30 days”.  A resolution is a promise that you make to yourself and strive to live up to every single day.

Making Resolutions and Being Intentional

It sounds a lot like an affirmation in the fact that it also prepares your mind for the day ahead and the work ahead. It is, in effect, getting your mindset ready for productivity or being in a good mood or even helping you establish a success mindset.

Setting intentions can also help you work on and overcome a negative mindset. If you’re always thinking negative or being negative, setting a daily intention to be more positive can help you get your mind ready for a more positive day. It can also help you become more aware when you are being negative. If you determine your intention in the morning, it can possibly give you a little nudge later on when you start to feel aggravated at something.

Intentions can help you achieve your goals by focusing on daily results. If you don’t take the time each day to set your intentions for the day, you could be playing with chance. In a sense, daily intentions help you guide the outcome of your own day. This is not a perfect or exact science, but many people claim to have better days if they set intentions. On the days they skip setting intentions, many things tend to go haywire or out of their control.

If you want more control over your life and your circumstances, start setting daily intentions and see if you don’t get better results.

 

 

Should You Set Goals?

Yes! Goals are important too, as they are things you want to accomplish by a due date. Most people set short-term goals, mid-range goals and long-term goals.

• Short term goals can be weekly or monthly, and some are even set as three to five month goals.
• Mid-range goals are those you set from six months or a year up to about three years.
• Long term goals are generally those over five years.

Once you have your goals established, you would then create a plan to reach them. You can break them down into monthly tasks, weekly tasks and daily tasks. Use your daily resolutions to keep you on track toward achieving your goals. Also, if you are writing out your goals and reading them often, that will help you stay focused on reaching them and keep you motivated to keep working on them.

Let’s Get Started…

Pick a goal for yourself, and then break the goal down into manageable steps that you can achieve one day or one week at a time. Eat more vegetables with your meals. Eat a smaller dessert portion. Walk a minute or two longer than you did yesterday. Clean out or organize one drawer or shelf.

For example…

In the past, when I left the house to go to work or to run errands, I would stop at a convenience store or drive-thru for a drink. Nothing fancy, just a cold ice tea or soda. It finally dawned on me that those simple drinks added up to $10 to $15 a week. Granted that doesn’t sound like much. But when you think in terms of months, that’s $40 to $60 dollars. Average that amount at $50 a month, that’s $600 a year. So, what if I just carried a drink with me in an insulated cup?

Boom! I just saved $600! Spend Less/Save More!

And finally, remember this

You will never CHANGE YOUR LIFE until you change something you do daily. THE SECRET OF YOUR SUCCESS is found in your daily routine. ~John C. Maxwell

What resolutions have you made?