It’s time for that annual ritual of
making (and breaking) our New Year’s resolutions. There is something
about the idea of being able to start over that motivates us to pause
(at least briefly) and reflect on our lives as they are, as well as
how we would like them to be. Yet how many times have you thought back
to last year’s goals and found that many or most of them were
abandoned or just forgotten after a few weeks or months into the year?
Many of us have
difficulty following through on our resolutions due to factors such as
choosing unrealistic goals, not making them challenging enough and/or
lacking the necessary motivation to stick with them. The following
tips should help put you on the right course and assist you in staying
committed to your most important goals for the year ahead.
Start with a life vision
If you don’t know what you want your future to look like, how can
you decide what areas of your life need to be worked on? Spend some
quiet time TODAY reflecting on (and writing down) what is good, bad or
incomplete. Then try to “see” your life if all of these areas were
addressed and had become satisfactory to you.
Get organized
Clear away clutter. Go through paperwork, files, old bills and
receipts, closets, drawers and storage containers. Decide what you
need and will use and either throw out or give away all the rest. Put
aside some time each week for this purpose. After you have cleaned out
you can think about your existing systems for management and storage
and see if these need reworking or just some fine-tuning. Keep ONE
calendar to record all appointments, events, etc. Write down
everything- don’t rely on memory.
Expand your horizons and make a commitment to learning something
new.
Challenging yourself will infuse you with greater energy and sense
of purpose. It will help build your self-esteem to realize you really
are capable of more than you had previously believed. This new
learning can also give you additional resources to assist you in your
career, personal or love life.
Set challenging but realistic resolutions
Choose goals that stretch your ability muscles, yet are realistic
and therefore less vulnerable to failure. Don’t respond to that
negative inner voice that says; “oh, I’m not capable of that”.
Instead, focus on what you truly desire for your life and
relationships and let this be your guide.
Write down your resolutions
Write them down and stick them on your bathroom mirror, your
fridge, your car dashboard, your desk or wherever you know will be a
good place for you to see them. You can also show them to a good
friend, family member, your coach or anyone who could provide support
and encouragement.
Create action steps for each resolution; write them down, and keep
an accounting of your progress for each.
A resolution without planned action is doomed to failure. Break
each goal down into small action steps or objectives. Putting a date
for completion will help ensure you follow through. Come up with an
accountability system that will work for you. Make sure you check off
each accomplishment as you go and be flexible and willing to make
adjustments in your action steps in order to achieve your desired end
results.
Take
care of yourself; eat well. Exercise regularly and learn to
control and eliminate unhealthy stress.
I know this is an
obvious one, so why is it often ignored or overlooked when we are
attempting to make important life changes? How many times have you
said, “I don’t have the time” to eat right, exercise, sleep
adequately, etc? Not caring for yourself will guarantee failure. So,
why not make this your first and most important resolution for the
year ahead?
Work to eliminate bad habits
Including this as a New Year’s resolution would put you on the road
to good follow-through. Bad habits will sabotage your efforts and use
up your limited resources of time, energy and focus. For each bad
habit you decide to eliminate, have a good habit in mind to replace it
with.
Set appropriate and healthy limits in all areas of your life
Knowing your limits and enforcing them with yourself and others is
a prerequisite to a healthy life and relationship. Learn to say “no”
and “enough” and be firm in your resolve that this is a good thing to
do. Otherwise, you will also be undermining your resolution to take
care of yourself.
Work to 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. You wouldn’t
want to compromise on the standards you have set for a potential mate.
Therefore, it’s important to understand that this also holds true for
other people in search of relationships.
Now begin this year with the resolve to be the person you know you
have the potential to be. You’ll be pleased with the wonderful changes
that await you!
Toni Coleman is a licensed therapist and relationship coach in
private practice in McLean, Virginia. She specializes in working with
singles who want to create lasting, intimate relationships. Toni has
over 20 years of post-masters experience in relationship counselling
and coaching with singles and couples. She is the founder and
President of Life Change Coaching and Consum-mate Relationship
Coaching. She developed and teaches the Creating Lasting Relationships
Training, a tele-workshop designed to help singles to define,
implement and fulfil their life and relationship goals. She has also
written numerous email classes for singles on all aspects of meeting,
dating and relating. She is the author of the email newsletter, The
Art of Intimacy, which goes out to thousands of subscribers monthly.
http://www.consum-mate.com
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