Self Improvement and Motivation with your New Years Resolution

Barely two months in 2010 and already many a New Year’s Resolutions have been broken. Why are they so difficult to keep?

I call February, the forgotten month. Resolutions will have long disappeared until a birthday or the festive season closing into another new year.

Achieving your goals requires you to really understand what you want, why you want it, the emotional connection you have attached to it (i.e the price you are willing to pay to do it as opposed the price of suffering having not achieved it). It requires guts to take action because it will mean a change of habits. It will mean getting out of your comfort zone which will stretch you beyond what you are used to and your current beliefs. The beliefs you hold is dictated by the quality of your mind. If unnourished, then it’s weak. Nourish it, and you will attain a Winning Mind. A mind that can achieve anything it sets out to do.

What’s the best way to go about achieving your goals?

Understanding that you will only live once and that time is both perishable and unforgiving. In life there are those who let things happen, those who watch things happen, and many who don’t even know what happened. Take for instance the time thus has gone by you so far this year. Make a decision to not let your life be driven by your excuses. Get out there and make it happen.

Is it natural for one to feel a pang of guilt if one has not been able to make their resolution stick?

Hahaha. Guilt is the start and then it becomes a habit many are familiar with- complaining. The whole concept of which is simple. You know that you could be a better person. You know you can do better in your professional life. You know that you can live an amazingly full personal life. You know what your best is, and yet you’re not being it. That’s the whole reason why you’d complain in the first place. Think about it. If you already lived the best you could possibly be, then you couldn’t complain, because you wouldn’t have anything better to compare it with. The reason you complain is because you are comparing where you are with where you could and in fact should be. An example I use is ordering a cup of latte in a café. The only reason I would ever ask for it to be replaced is because I know it can be made better. If I didn’t then I would happily accept the latte for how it was served.

Quick step checklist for people to achieve their goals

1. Become aware of your time.
2. Plan in advance.
3. Focus on being productive rather than caught up in being busy.
4. Prioritise, Eliminate, Systemise and Automate.
5. Begin by getting the worst task out of the way
6. Drop the excuses