Making New Year’s Resolutions …
For many people, mixed feelings of dread and bad expectations arise in the final days of a year. But such a dread can also be accompanied by expectations full of wonderful promise. The promise of Christmas is followed by the promise of New Year’s Day – a time for new beginnings and resolutions aimed at changes for the better. Those are our unrealistic expectations and attitudes that give rise to our bad expectations:
Aim for your destination, concentrate on the journey. How pleasant it feels to dream about the happy, healthy, and productive person I’ll become after I have got down to it on the January 1st! However, willpower is not enough for long-term success. Willpower is just a good basis for careful goal setting and planning.
Motivation evolves from small successes. Even if you feel full of power for big changes, only keeping the ultimate outcome in mind most likely won’t help you for long time. Break down large goals into smaller ones, and keep your concentration on the closest one. For instance, if your resolution is to lose 8 kg, then joining a swimming club and improving your eating habits are two general action plans. Now, list all steps that are required to take, accompanied by target dates and strategies for maintaining new habits once you reach your goal. A SMART specific action goal for the first week could be two swimming workouts of 30 minutes each. This is a specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and time-related goal. Even if you didn’t lose any weight by the end of the week, you are one step closer to your ultimate goal – you have already changed your habits.
Make a daring Plan B. If you aim your goal, it is wise to make plans for setbacks. One could think about alternative workouts that can be grabbed at when swimming plan is changed by holydays, betraying exercise buddies or simple boredom.
Happy New Year’s resolutions!
