by Simon Wright

Created on: December 29, 2008   Last Updated: January 08, 2009

How to stick to your New Year's resolutions:

The start of a new year is an opportune moment to reflect on how successful the previous year has been and what we want to get out of the forthcoming year. It's not surprising therefore that many of us use this time to write down our new year's resolutions. As many of us would attest to, however, the difficulty is often persevering with your resolutions once the initial few days and weeks of the new year have passed. In this article, I'll look therefore at how you can maximise the probability that you will adhere to the resolutions that you have set yourself.

Setting your new year's resolutions:

One of the frequent difficulties that people have is that they either set completely unrealistic resolutions, or else they set resolutions that are very vague and hard to measure against. A typical resolution is to get fit this year' and this desire sees huge increases in gym membership every January! However, once you've got to February or March, how are you going to assess whether you are fit enough? The danger is that you will give up on the resolution as there isn't a clear enough focus to drive you towards. A better way of meeting that desire to get fit might be to say something along the lines of I will go to the gym at least once per week and will run a 10k race in June'. Suddenly, you've got a measurable element to the resolution and you've set yourself a target for later in the year that should hopefully drive you to get out there and ensure that you are doing the required amount of exercise.

I mentioned the need to be realistic as well. A resolution of "I want to earn $20,000 from my writing this year" might not be realistic and may result in you becoming disillusioned and giving up. A more realistic target might be to say something like "I want to earn $1,000 from Helium this year". Of course, it can be tricky to get the balance right. You don't want the target to be too easy but you stand a better chance of persevering with the resolution if you have something that you can realistically strive for.

Enshrining your resolutions on paper:

When we're working towards goals, it's good to have them written down so there is some tangible reminder of what we are working towards. Ideally, you should print them out and display them somewhere where you are going to see them regularly. For many of us, pinning our new year's resolutions near our computer screen will be a good way of being reminded of them. The danger with resolutions

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>