Plan for Success when Setting Goals
The biggest reason New Year’s resolutions do not succeed is because the vision was not done with a plan.
The most popular resolution losing weight and getting fit has to be done not out of fear or desperation, but thought thru.
Take baby steps in your plan. The first week plan on a few days and 30 minutes of exercise. Then the next week a few days and 45 minutes. The next week 3 days and 45 minutes and stick to it.
Do not plan you are going to go out and run a few miles when you haven’t even walked any distance for months. It will fail right away. Either your body will fail you or you will be very discouraged and fail.
If your goal is to quit a bad habit like smoking put a plan together first. You might start with smoking one less cigarette a day for a week .Then you might smoke 2 less each day for a week. This might also include taking a way the opportunities you associate with smoking like going to a bar or meeting with friends you smoke with. Instead meet with them at a non smoking restaurant or location. These are suggestions for a plan but you know what kind of plan works for you and what is reasonable.
The other important component on being successful in achieving your goals is to ask why you are doing this. It HAS to be for YOU not someone else.
Enlisting help is a very successful way to accomplish a goal. Tell someone about your goal. They can help motivate you. If exercise is the goal, find someone else who has the same goal to exercise with. This works because someone else is counting on you and is understanding of your challenges and successes.
Don’t focus on setbacks. Just because you didn’t keep your resolutions last year doesn’t mean you can’t this year.
When you wake up in the morning be determined to make your goals that day and not worry about the next.
Congratulations on your decision to make some sort of change in your life and remember:
- Take baby steps
- Do it for YOU
- Enlist help
- Focus on the end goal each day and don’t look back or too far forward
Eileen Richardson
