Are you planning to break your old patterns this new year? A new year often feels like an excellent opportunity to set new goals and change old habits. Resolutions can be easy to make but hard to follow and by the end of January, most of our resolutions go down the drain. Making a new years resolution can be challenging and at the same time exciting. Here are 6 tips to help you get started this new year.
1. Keep it in the present
Rather than keeping our goal in the future, make it a present experience. Instead of saying “I will lose weight” say “I am losing weight” or “I will allow myself to lose weight”. A goal that becomes our present experience motivates us and increases our involvement in the process.
2. Avoid negative framing
The mind always thinks in terms of images. As a result, framing our goals with words like “no” or “not” has the opposite effect on the mind. Having a goal that says “I will not eat unhealthy food” is the same as saying “I will eat unhealthy food”. Negative words are not recognized by the mind.
3. Keep it simple
While setting a goal we must look at the essence of our goal. Rather than having a goal that says “I allow myself to follow my diet, I allow myself will exercise every day, I allow myself to meditate every day” it is better to have a goal that says “I will allow myself to have a healthy lifestyle”. A goal that has too many parts becomes complicated and hard to achieve. When we look at the big picture, we will likely get what we want rather than what we think we want.
4. Start easy
“If You Want to Change the World, Start Off by Making Your Bed.” – William McRaven, US Navy Admiral.
By taking the above example where our goal is to achieve a healthy lifestyle, we should start by doing one or two simple tasks like waking up early or drinking enough water. This will have a Snow Ball Effect on your goal. Once we are consistent with these simple tasks then we can keep adding more difficult tasks one by one till we achieve our final goal.
5. Act as if you’ve already attained it.
Once we act as if we have already attained our goal, our belief system starts changing and our habits become more aligned with our vision. Everything starts with a thought, thoughts like “I won’t be able to lose weight” or “I can’t do this” can be demoralizing and get in the way of our actual abilities to do something well. Acting “as if” can alter such negative thoughts.
6. Accept failure
“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” – Stephen McCranie.
Accepting failure as a learning experience is one of the most important aspects of achieving any goal. Failures frequently result in success because they allow us to test and try things to determine what works and what doesn’t. Learning new perspectives, abilities, and methods is common via adversity or failure.
