New Year Resolutions Count Down: 4 weeks to go

With only 4 weeks (roughly) to go until the end of the year and the start of a brand new one, it’s easy to wind down and not worry too much about your life goals until next year.

And millions of people round the world take this approach, and then use New Year’s Day as a fresh start to a new year and as the trigger to evaluate their lives and where it’s all heading.

The problem is, most goals set on New Year’s Day are reactionary, or at the very least, unplanned – “Gee, I wish I didn’t eat so much at Christmas. I’m really going to lose weight this year.” Or “We spent way too much on Christmas presents. This year we’re really going to get our finances in order”. Do any of these sound familiar?

Of course, reactionary or ‘guilt’ based goals really don’t work because the feeling of guilt and the length of the ‘reaction’ actually don’t last very long so your desire to achieve these goals disappears as well – usually by the end of January.

But there is something refreshing about starting a year a-new, and New Years Resolutions are still the most popular way to do it. So I thought we’d get in early and start you all thinking about your goals NOW so you can make your New Year Resolutions count.

Why start now? Well, thinking about your life direction and setting these important goals takes time and it isn’t easy to do it all on one day, particularly if you’re a little hung over from the night before!

So for the next 4 weeks, we’ll be arming you with the resources and tools to get your mind around your goals and what you really want to achieve from your life, so that on New Year’s Day, you don’t have to panic about setting resolutions and you can hit the ground running with real goals that are based on your understanding of what you really want to achieve - goals that are meaningful to you and goals that you have a genuine desire and passion to want to achieve.

Of course, it’s important to realise that New Year resolutions aren’t the only chance you’ve got to set yourself goals. Birthdays, seasons, the start of the month and even every Monday, Sunday, Wednesday are all great times to set goals. In fact, you can actually set goals anytime you like! Any epiphany will do!

Now to get you started, I recommend that you try one of the following FREE resources on how to set and achieve goals.

• The Life Planning Program is a workbook style program that you can work through at your own pace, and is supported by practical tools, templates and assessments – which are all FREE!
• Goal Setting E-Course: Foundations and Keystones – this course helps you work through the foundations and keystones of the goal setting process by helping you understand what’s really important to you and how YOU influence your own goal setting destiny. This course is great for goal setting beginners!
• Goal Setting E-Course: Making your Roadmap to success – this course is a natural progression from the Goal Setting Foundations E-Course and helps you turn these strong foundations into achievable goals through the effective and proven process of SMART goal setting and action planning.
• Mini goal setting E-course – this is a shorter version of the above 2 courses rolled into one simple E-course. This course is great if you already have some goal setting experience under your belt and understand the basics of the goal setting process. The course refreshes the most important parts of the goal setting process, so you don’t lose your way.

These E-courses and the workbook are all based on the same concept of understanding yourself first, before you can understand what goals you really want to achieve. We’ve had some extremely positive feedback from the workbook (the e-courses are based on the workbook) so please give it a go. And it’s FREE.

Here’s another FREE e-book on goal setting from Arina Nikitina.

We’ll be issuing the next Goal Kicker edition in this NYR Count Down Series next week, so before then I just ask you to think about what you really want to achieve from your life.

Think about when you’re on your death bed, how do you want your life to be remembered? How do you want YOU to be remembered? What achievements do you want to have achieved? And more importantly, think about what makes you happy. When are you at your happiest and what are you doing? What is your passion?

All of these are fundamental in enabling you to set the goals that are going to be best for you, and these goals are the ones you should be setting yourself now and for the New Year.

And read the article below on “10 Tips For Setting And Keeping New Year Resolutions” to help you get your mind around new year resolutions and how you CAN make them stick.

So until next week, happy thoughts and dreams. Let see if we can help you achieve them.

Best regards

Sam Sander

Achieve Goal Setting Success

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10 Tips For Setting And Keeping New Year Resolutions

Most people have difficulty following through on New Year resolutions in particular, but the following tips should help you make and commit to your most important resolutions for the upcoming year.

1. Start with a vision

If you don’t know what you want your future to look like, how can you work out how to get there? Spend some quiet time reflecting on and writing down what is good, bad and incomplete in your life. Then try to visualize your perfect life if all of these areas were addressed. This is the basis of your life vision.

2. Expand your horizons

Make a commitment to try something new. This will help build a sense of purpose and can also give you extra skills to help you in your career or personal life. You may even be surprised by what you can do when you challenge yourself.

3. Set challenging but realistic goals

Select goals that stretch and challenge you, but are also realistic and possible to achieve. Impossible goals are doomed to failure. Focus on what you really want for your life and let this be your guide.

4. Write down your goals/ resolutions

It’s important to write your New Year resolutions and goals down on paper and keep them where you can see them daily. Remember, out of sight, out of mind. It also helps to show them to a good friend or family member, who can provide support and encouragement.

5. Create action steps for each goal

There’s no point having a goal if you have no plan to help you achieve it. Break each goal down into small action steps or tasks, and write down all the steps and tasks. Set a date for completion to make sure you follow through and make sure you monitor your progress against your goals so you can achieve your desired end results.

6. Take care of yourself

Eat well, exercise regularly and manage stress. Afterall, if your body and mind aren’t in tip top shape, how do you expect to find the energy and motivation to achieve your goals?

7. Eliminate bad habits

Bad habits sabotage your efforts to achieve your goals and live a functional life, and they also consume your limited resources of time, energy and focus. Aim to eliminate your bad habits, and have a good habit in mind to replace it with.

8. Set appropriate and healthy limits

Know your limits and enforce them with yourself, as this is vital for a healthy and successful life. Learn to say “no” and “that’s enough”, and be firm in your resolve that this is a good thing to do. Otherwise, you will be undermining your resolution to take care of yourself.

9. Be the kind of person you want to be with

Bringing out the best qualities in yourself will help to ensure that you attract people of good quality into your life, whether this is for a personal or professional relationship. Afterall, you pick and choose who you want in your life based on their qualities, and other people do as well.

10. Get organized

And finally, getting organized is the key to being able to achieve what you want to achieve. Clear away clutter and think about your existing systems for management and organization and see if these need any reworking. Keep one calendar to record all appointments and events, and use a diary to write down everything else so you don’t have to rely on your memory.

So armed with the above tips, start the new year with the resolve to be the person you know you have the potential to be. You’ll be surprised by what you can actually achieve once you put your mind to it!