We know this usually happens, but not in 2014, and we can tell you how!
Typically, we are all psyched about the new year; reinventing ourselves, making new resolutions and wanting to conquer everything and all that jazz. But as the days turns to weeks to months, slowly but surely we find ourselves reverting back to our old habits and before we know it, the year is over and we are left with resolutions that never made it past the page of our well intended list of changes.
So here 5 tips gathered from the internet that can help change this tide or even inspire you in the coming year!
#1: Make resolutions as precise as possible
It is very easy to make generic resolutions like “travel more” or “lose weight” but this makes it harder to keep track of what you want to achieve and how you can go about doing it.
With more precise resolutions like “I shall lose 6kg by March so that I can fit into the jeans from Levis” gives your resolution a more concrete direction. Now you have a specific number to work towards and a deadline that you have drawn for yourself and its complete with the reward you can expect when you have achieved your target set.
You can go on to BucketList and start creating goals that you want to do. Often people are writing down goals that they want to accomplish in their lifetime, but you can tweak some of them to be specific enough for 2015. Remember, it’s easier to achieve goals that are more defined!
#2: Work around themes this year
How tired are you of making the same resolutions every year? Instead of making a whole list of resolutions that identifies a concrete behaviour, you assign a theme to your year! Ideally, the theme is a word that should embody something that you feel is missing from your daily life. So you don’t have to go through the hassle of identifying specific behaviours that you want to work on; simply keep your theme in mind and allow your day to unfold from there.
For example, a theme for the year can be “mindfulness.” We are in a constant state of distraction with our gadgets and being plugged into social media and the net 24/7, so much so that multitasking has become second nature to us.
We miss so much of what goes on around us because we are fixated on screens that we hold in the palm of our hands. This takes a greater toll on our health as well as social life than we actually realise. How often do we see friends hanging out together but not talking to each other because they are all looking at their phones? Maybe we should be thankful they even met up in the first place!
Being mindful means paying attention to the present moment. We can practice this in many ways, take time to notice the taste of the food as we eat instead of just instagraming it, as you walk from one place to another really notice the shape of the clouds or the people around you (just not while you are crossing the road!), really listen to what your friend is saying. Just enjoy the present!
#3: Screw goals, make systems
So we make goals and usually find ourselves unable to make them happen. Sometimes we cheat by editing the goals so that we can claim we have achieved something.
But this doesn’t have to be our fate!
According to James Clear who uses behaviour science to help others master their habits to do better work, there is a much better way to do things; it all comes down to the difference between goals and systems.
What is the difference between goals and systems?
If you’re an entrepreneur, your goal is to build a million dollar business. Your system is your sales and marketing process.
If you’re a writer, your goal is to write a book. Your system is the writing schedule that you follow each week.
The interesting takeaway is that even if you were to take away the goal, you are likely to achieve it simply because you have been following a system. For example, if you ignored your goal of earning a million dollars, but instead focused on a system for getting clients who paid and increasing users in the long run, it will eventually lead you to earning the big bucks anyway.
According to James, creating and following systems have other added benefits such as increasing your state of happiness in the present moment, establishing processes that have long-term benefits and one of the most overlooked aspect of setting goals is that we think we can control future events but we can’t and by setting processes, you can set up feedback loops that allows you to reflect if the process is working for you currently and if it isn’t you can modify to make it better.
Of course this doesn’t mean that you have to ditch all the goals that you want to work towards, goals and systems can work together! Goals are good for planning your progress and systems are good for making progress.
#4:Is that money in your pocket or ? OMG! Yes it is!
I remember how excited I was in Uni when I could afford to buy Milo Dinosaur after finding coins stashed in different pockets in my bag. Thats how cash strapped I was! It seems that some things don’t change much. Today I am very excited when I can afford to get myself a glass of house pour for 5 bucks.
This is a challenge I am excited to embark on. Save a certain amount every week correlating to the week number and by the end of the year, you have saved enough to actually treat yourself to an awesome holiday or you can just deposit the money in bank the way adults do sometimes.
Rolling in the dough in 2014! #swaggie #sugarmommy
#5: Remember the good times
It can be very easy to get caught up in the drama of our lives! At times the world can look bleak and gloomy and some of the little moments which made us happy can get forgotten. So here is a simple project that you can do so that when 2015 is rolling around and you want to know what happened in 2014, you can look into the Happy Jar.
Just take any jar or container, and every time something good happens note it on a piece of paper and deposit in your Happy Jar. Thats it! By the end of the year, you will have loads of happy memories to read through again and some might even surprise you. Its sort of like a portable Patronus Charm of your very own.
Have a great 2014 everyone!
