New Years Resolution - Top Tips to make a successful New Years Resolution

MAKE 2011 YOUR BEST YEAR YET!

Top tips to make a successful New Years Resolution

1. One of the most important things we can do before we start any journey is actually have a destination in mind. What I would like for you to do is detail in your Success Diary all of the things that you would like to achieve in your life. Create in your mind a picture of all of the things which excite you. They can be things or people or places or social status or an internal state.

2. Now go back through the list and asterisk the ones which are most important to you.

3. Based on the asterisked items, categorise them into the following dimensions or aspects of your life: Social, Occupation, Finance, Physical, Emotional, Mental & Spiritual

Great start, the next section is set up so that you can adjust the above goals and implement the success strategies as you go.

Your Goals – Setting yourself up for success

4. SMART Goals
S is for SPECIFIC: Get Specific – Define each of these aspects in as much detail as possible.
For example if one of my financial goals is to earn more money I could say ‘more money’ or I could get really specific and say $2500/month, as soon as I state that number I know where I am and how much more I need to achieve it and I can start to break down the ways in which I can achieve it.
M is for MEASURE: How can you measure it?
If we continue with the example above it is in money which is easily quantified. But how do you describe your success if your goal is ‘happiness’? Tell me what is happiness to you? How have you experienced happiness in the past?
A Is it acttractive? State the goal in a way that is attractive to you and as though you have already achieved it (you will begin to act as though you have already achieved it which will
R is for REALISTIC: Is it realistic?
T is for TIME: In what time frame do you want to have it achieved by and what are the stepping stones along the way you can tick off?

Now go through all of your goals identify how they meet the SMART criteria

5. What is your purpose for working on these things this year? Why do you want to achieve them, what higher purpose do they each contribute to – what is your higher purpose and what is the higher purpose in focusing on each of these things?

What is your higher purpose (general):

How do each of the goals fit in with your higher purpose:

Now, rank each of the above goals firstly out of 1 – 10 based on how much you want them (1 being not much and 10 being desperate for it) and secondly rank them from 1 – 10 based on how much conscious effort it is going to take for you to achieve these goals (1 being not at all and 10 being 100% focus).

Now rank each of the goals in your Success Diary, based on priority and how you wish to focus your time on achieving them:

My brilliant goals for a fantastic 2011:

We are limited by nothing but our own imaginations – if you can think it, you can achieve it! If you give yourself a couple moments to ponder; you will find that you are already coming up with ways you can achieve the goals you have identified and ranked on the previous page.

Continue to brainstorm the logistics and implementation of these goals. As soon as we remove ‘impossible and doubt’ from our mindset we are able to allow our minds to open up to all of the possibilities. Isn’t it exciting to experience how your mind is firing off and you can see all of the ways you can be successful!

How do you see each of these fitting into your life, how are you going to change your priorities to fit these new goals in, how are you going to ensure you succeed with each of these.

6. Out with the old and in with the new:
Successfully replacing the old undesired behaviour with the new

First we need to understand why we would do something that is essentially not healthy for us and not what helps us achieve that perfect lifestyle full of abundance, joy and happiness which we want.

Everything we do comes down to two simple factors.
1. The need to avoid pain (primarily)
2. The need to gain pleasure (secondly)

Have a think about it – anything you do, you gain from it in one way or another. You are probably thinking ‘yeah right – that is ridiculous’, what could I possibly gain from sabotaging my relationship, or overeating, or choosing to watch TV instead of going out for my exercise - why would I do any of these things. If you sit long enough and ask yourself ‘what do I gain from doing this’ the answer (your reason) will come.

Before any kind of change can be affected, you need to decide that what you are doing (the behaviour that you want to change) is an un-resourceful way of fulfilling one or more of your human needs and satisfying your individual values (if you would like to discover what your values are please email me for your free eBook and report).

7. So now you have decided that what you are doing needs to be replaced – you can choose how you are going to replace the behaviour, habit, action with a new behaviour, habit, action which is more in line with the goals you have outlined in the previous section and in a way that you are happy with and can control.

Our brain has created neural associations with a stimuli and our behaviour (the one we want to change). Once upon a time when the behaviour we are wanting to change was first enacted we did so in response to a stimuli and over time we reinforced the trigger and behaviour by repetition. Did you know that to enable us to function in our daily activities our brain has tried to automate as much of our interpretation and responses to stimuli as possible. This is so that we can focus on what we need to for survival and to make this life meaningful because our senses (which are the way we interpret and make sense out of what is going on in the world) are being bombarded with over 2 million bits of information every second and if we couldn’t have some degree of automation we probably wouldn’t be able to move let alone interact with other humans and plan more complex activities like weddings or work functions or the other great things we fill our lives with.

With this utilisation of automating our responses to our environment we have learnt to adopt certain behaviours we probably don’t like but also aren’t sure how to change and have just accepted that that is ‘just us’. Well the hard truth is we each have 100% control over our faculties and how we move our body and interact with ourselves – let’s change that behaviour.

Draw a line down the middle of a page in your Success Diary, on one side label Trigger of Old Behaviour to replace and lable the other side New Empowering Behaviour. In as much detail as possible, write what your trigger is with the behaviour you want to change (you may have more than one trigger). Be sure to include as much of your internal and external environment as possible. Also include in the table what your behaviour is and what you want that behaviour to be (what do you want to change it to).

Trigger Old Behaviour to replace New Empowering Behaviour

Some other questions to ask yourself:
How are you going to know if you have been successful at changing the old behaviour and implementing the new?

Be easy on yourself – the old behaviour may sneak back in and you may unconsciously respond in the old way, the most important thing is that your are aware of it and that you stop yourself as soon as you realise and replace it with the new behaviour.

8. Repitition:
Successfully replacing the old undesired behaviour with the new

The neural pathway we have for our behaviours and their individual stimuli is like writing in dry cement. Unless we wear the writing away it will continue to exist. Similarly it may take some time and conscious awareness to successfully replace the old behaviour with the new better one. This is the same for all of us. How do you think we learnt to walk? How do you think you learnt to ride a bike? Everything we’ve achieved in life has not come to us the first time (usually).

Practice makes perfect! And soon enough you will find you are picking up on the old behaviour sooner and effortlessly replacing it with the new.

9. Sensory Acuity & Behavioural Flexibility:
Change your action if you are not achieving the results you want

Be certain to understand that the milestones you have created and even the end goal are not set in stone. It is important to be able to alter your actions if you are not achieving the outcomes you thought you might (re-assess your milestones), it is also important to realise that the goal which was important to you when you initially completed these exercises has become out-ranked in importance by new or different life circumstances (you may need to re-assess your final goal and milestones) or has lost its priority in your goal attaining list (see page 5).
Acknowledging yourself and reward:
Stop using failure as your motivating force and feel successful in everything you do

10. We humans love to be acknowledged and rewarded and congratulated! It is paramount that you make sure for each of your milestones you achieve that you have a reward in mind (make sure that the reward is in-line with your other goals). This ensures that you gain positive reinforcement along the way and aren’t holding out reward until you achieve the final goal, otherwise you may run out of motivational ‘puff’ and stop prematurely.

It is important that in everything we choose to focus our energy (physical, emotional or mental) on, we set ourselves up for success! Make sure you use the right amount of self-control, motivation and reward.

11. For each of your goals identify your timeline for achieving them – see yourself when you have achieved your goal in its entirety.

Ultimate Goal (describe):

Goal Timeline:
To do this properly we need to go right to the end where you have achieved your goal and will work backwards so you know what it is you first need to do to achieve your goal and how you are going to stay on track with your progression through your goals Milestones.

Todays Date:

Date of final goal achievement: How many months until achieved:
How many weeks until achieved:
How many days until achieved:

Q. Is it daily focus that your goal requires or a weekly checklist, do you need to micro manage or macro manage your goal?

How many milestones does your goal require? By milestones I mean how many stepping stones or smaller goals or chunks do you need to break your goal into. This allows your goal to become more manageable (you won’t get overwhelmed or bogged down in how ‘enormous’ it is) and you will know straight away what your next move must be which you can make with confidence.

Keep working backwards (from when you have achieved your goal) with your milestones

For example:
My goal for maintaining my fitness is a 12-month goal (to continue over a life-time), and for me it makes most sense to break this goal into monthly chunks to ensure my fitness is still on track.

Milestone 11 = November Saturday 27th 2011 Reassessment of my monthly physical activity & fitness
1. Average minutes of weekly exercise
2. Highest minutes of weekly exercise
3. Lowest minutes of weekly exercise
4. Average HR (bpm)/intensity of each workout
5. Highest intensity workout (HR) and for how long
6. Lowest intensity workout (HR) and for how long
Time trial: 5km run (similar route for repeatability) Time: (Goal <30mins)
Beep test Level: (Goal > 7.5)

What did I do well this month?
What should I continue?
What do I need to stop/change to achieve my goals?
What do I need to implement to achieve my goals?
I would continue like this for each of the months (Milestone 10 = Saturday 30th October) until I got to Milestone 1 which would be Saturday 29th January.

Your turn
For each of your goals identify your timeline for achieving them – see yourself when you have achieved your goal in its entirety.

Ultimate Goal (describe):

Goal Timeline:
To do this properly we need to go right to the end where you have achieved your goal and will work backwards so you know what it is you first need to do to achieve your goal and how you are going to stay on track with your progression through your goals Milestones.

Todays Date:

Date of final goal achievement: How many months until achieved:
How many weeks until achieved:
How many days until achieved:

Milestone # Date

Reward:

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For any enquiries on how you want to Love Your Compass more please contact Ainsley or Camilla at info@loveyourcompass.com.au or call Ainsley on 0410 860 831.