Where has your New Year Resolution gone?

Yes, we are at the end of January and how many of us have already forgotten our New Year’s Resolution? Statistics show that by this time of the year, a high percentage of those who made resolutions less than a month earlier have already abandon them. Therefore, what can we do and what actions can we take to make sure that we stay on track, throughout the year? Here are some suggestions:

1) Break you resolution down in to manageable chunks – Yes, one of my favorite subjects and life changing techniques, Kaisen.  Those who are familiar with Kaisen, know that small steps lead to big success. For example, if you want to lose weight, don’t suddenly put yourself on a restricted 1200 calorie a day diet or go for a 10 mile run, if you run out of breath walking around the block. Instead, create  a healthy balanced diet, where you reduce you calories slowly. Cut out most of your bad food habits, but do allow yourself a small treat as a reward. For example, if you normally eat half a pack of biscuits a day, cut this down to a few biscuits. Eventually the aim is to cut it down to one biscuit and then none (optional). Similarly, when exercising, walk at a steady pace for 15 mins every day for one week, then increase this to 30 minutes and so on. These are just examples of what you can do, but you get the idea in general and can apply it to anything. Slowly cut down the bad habits and slowly increase the good habits.

2) Choose one resolution/goal – Do not complicate things, by taking on too much. Give yourself one clear resolution/goal to complete, so you can fully concentrate on it without spreading yourself too thinly.

3) Write things down – Yes, record your progress in a journal and you will see how much you improve as your will power becomes stronger and you get closer your goal (i.e. Sticking to your resolution). Also, as you write, you will be imprinting your goal in to sub-concious mind.

4) Define what you really want to change – Be individual and do not feel obliged to follow the usual ‘routine’ resolutions that are in the media at the end of each year.

5)  Get some support – Ask you family and friends to hold you accountable and to help keep you on track. Every week, discuss about your progress.

Tags: abandon, actions, kaisen, new year resolution, stay on track, support

This entry was posted on January 30, 2010 at 10:06 am and is filed under PJ Ponders?. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.