January is flying by, did you know approximately 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail and most fail by February!
How are you getting on with yours?
Here’s my annual list of how to keep focused:
Less is more
Less is more! Our brains don’t love to multi-task, it’s great to be ambitious but adding more goals to an already busy life makes too many goals unachievable. Make it easy on yourself, focus on one thing at a time, you can always add more later on in the year.
New year, same 24 hours
Just because it’s a ‘new year’ and a ‘fresh start’ and the start of a ‘new chapter’, does not mean that there are anymore than 24 hours in the day like there has always been. Use your time wisely and I highly recommend scheduling things in advance to hold yourself accountable.
Systems > goals
Your goal may be lofty and mighty, but if your systems to achieve it are poor or non-existent you are relying solely on motivation which is high at the start of the month, probably a lot lower by now, and might have vanished by February.
Break it down
Whatever your goal is I want you to break it right down into the smallest possible bitesize tasks that take you between 10-30 minutes. E.g. read more books, would be read 10 pages everynight straight after brushing my teeth. OR become more flexible, might be to do a 20 minute stretch every morning before work. How can you break your goals down?
Record progress
Record progress. This is one of the best ways to hold yourself accountable, when you have something visual you can see. So say if your goal is to get better at running, and your system is to run every Tuesday and Thursday mornings, create a visual chart on your wall and tick off each time you do it and write down your times and distances in each box.
Marathon > a sprint
Remember to instil long term change and habits – it’s a marathon not a sprint. So if you miss a day, that is ok, just get back on the right path the following day. 80% over a longer term, is far superior to 100% over a very short term.
Know your why!
Finally, know your ‘why’. Every time we set ourselves goals we are far more likely to achieve them if that goal connects back to our values and intrinsic beliefs, so ask yourself why about 5 times to get to the root of the answer, and don’t be afraid to change your goals to feel more meaningful.
And most importantly, don’t beat yourself up – It’s never a straight line to success and sometimes life gets in the way!
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