Make Your New Year's Resolution Fail Proof

Keep the promise of improving health and fitness by following these 5 outlined steps for success:

Step 1 – Vision

Know what you want out of life. People who are certain about what they want to accomplish are 6 times more likely to succeed in making positive significant life changes than those who are not. So it is important to clarify your goals, and not be ambivalent and conflicted about what you want to achieve. Otherwise it’s likely you won’t take the appropriate actions to fulfill your desires (i.e. lose weight to fit into clothes better, build muscle to compete in soccer, look good at a reunion, run a marathon, etc.) Uncover what will motivate you to exercise by asking yourself “why” until you have identified a specific reason(s) to act.

Step 2 – Strategy

Lofty visions without a compelling strategy to accomplish specific goals can lead to self-pity, hopelessness, and inconsistency. Properly setting your personal goals channels effort in the right direction, thereby boosting motivation while enhancing performance. After setting well-defined, challenging goals people tend to think longer, harder, and more creatively about how to accomplish their goals and overcome obstacles.

Effective goals are: specific, measurable, aggressive, relevant, time-bound, and approachable.

• Specific challenging goals result in better performance than easy goals, no goals, or simply trying to do your best.
• Measurable progress allows you to analyze whether the strategy you are employing is significantly moving you toward achieving a specific goal. This in turn encourages steady progress by minimizing the tendency to measure success in all-or-none terms. It is important to have short-term goals leading up to long-term goals, so that you stay motivated and persistent.
• Aggressive goals tend to accomplish more than setting modest goals. Setting goals at the upper end of your ability will elicit much more effort than setting goals that are easily achieved, making success that much sweeter.
• Relevant goals should outline specific actions consistent with your vision. People strive toward goals with greater enthusiasm, consistency, and confidence, when doing so brings them personal satisfaction. This leads to enhanced performance, perseverance, creativity, and self-esteem.
• A time-frame  for achieving a goal determines when the various parts of a plan are to be executed and completed, both long-term and short-term.  Solely focusing on long-term success may seem too arduous a task to tackle. This can produce feelings of “Why bother? I’ll never be able to do that.”
• Approachable goals focus on desired ends to move toward, rather than negative states to avoid. Being disciplined should not be about what you are losing, but what you are gaining.

Step – 3 Belief

However you define belief, it is one of the most powerful predictors for change and success. If you believe you will be successful, you will be more likely to:

• Work harder, achieve more and perform better in many different areas such as academics, sports, career, relationships and keeping New Year’s resolutions.
• Be happy, while effectively tackling problems of depression, anxiety, burnout, alcoholism, smoking, and obesity.
• Set more goals, and set them more effectively.
• Persist vigorously in the face of adversity and obstacles, while viewing setbacks as a source of motivation.
• Attribute failures to changeable causes (i.e. poor strategies) rather than unchangeable causes (i.e. not being smart enough).
• React better to difficult circumstances, including poor grades, career setbacks, stressful life style, paralyzing accidents, and chronic illnesses.
• Use more effective coping mechanisms, such as humor, regular exercise, and preventive care.

Step 4 – Persistence

Successful people view setbacks as a temporary state that lets them know there is yet a better course of action to be taken. It has been reported that people who successfully maintain their New Year’s resolutions for a period of 2 years admitted on average 14 slips. But they used those lapsed moments to strengthen their commitment. It is human to make mistakes and occasionally give into your vices, so don’t beat yourself up over slipping from time to time. Good practice over a period of time will help make it easier to cope with moments of weakness, and incidental slips will occur less frequently.

Reward yourself for success. This can be a powerful tool for aiding in weight loss, stopping smoking, battling depression, boosting self-esteem, and adhering to medical regimes. This can be as simple as treating yourself to a smoothie for not missing any scheduled workouts during the week.

Create a supportive network of friends and family to aid you in your efforts to do well, and help you bounce back quickly when you have setbacks. Successful people readily solicit the support of friends, family, and same interest groups. Consequently, they achieve more, live longer, and derive greater personal satisfaction from life than those who isolate themselves.

You should expect success but when setbacks due occur have a coping strategy in place to deal with them. Simply talking to a sympathetic friend that is aware of your struggle can help you get over the hump.

Step 5 – Learning

You should self-monitor by recording aspects of your behavior and measuring the progress towards your goal. It is crucial to know if the strategies you are implementing are causing significant change. If the answer is no, then course correction is needed. Thus, self-monitoring provides valuable feedback on whether a strategy is taking you toward your vision, and lets you know when corrections are needed when they are not.

If you are tired of unfulfilled promises piling up around you, know that it is generally not the result of being lazy, weak, having a lack of will-power, or a fear of success. Rather, it is the result of using flawed strategies to achieve success. Those who achieve more use the best processes for change. These individuals identify more techniques for change, and use those techniques longer, more frequently, more consistently, and more thoughtfully.

So let 2012 be the year that you stop making promises and make a plan instead!