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Forget Those Resolutions!

by | Feb 3, 2017 | Modern Life, Personal Growth, Personal Responsibility | 1 comment

It's only fair to share…

Do you start each year with the best intentions and resolutions, only to find yourself losing momentum and motivation weeks or months later? Many people make New Years’ resolutions – they vow to lose weight, stop smoking, start a new career or business, etc. Yet, over 90% of people who make New Years’ resolutions break them only three weeks later.

Keeping a commitment to yourself

When you make a resolution and tell yourself that you will do or change something, you are essentially making a commitment to yourself. Yet, year after year many people continue to let themselves down. Why? Because the two essential ingredients for keeping any commitment to yourself are missing. Firstly, you need to have absolute clarity about what it is that you want, combined with absolute certainty that you can achieve it. Secondly, you need to know why you want it – you need to have a compelling purpose for doing it.

Often people commit to things because they don’t know what they really want, they feel they should or have to do them, someone tells them to do them or to please other people, rather than because they really want those things.

Creating clarity

Being clear about exactly what you want is the key to pursuing and creating your heart’s desires. A great way to get clarity about what you really want is to brainstorm for ten minutes and write down everything you want to do, feel, have, be, achieve and experience in your life. Avoid editing your words, just write down whatever comes to mind. When asked to do this exercise, highly successful people can write down over 100 things in ten minutes because they know what they really want. See how many things you can write on your list in the next ten minutes.

Then once you have your list, choose one thing you would like to achieve this year in each area of your life. These become your goals for the year. Next it’s time to get certain about your ability to achieve these.

Developing Certainty

Unresolved fears, self doubts and limiting beliefs are by far the biggest saboteur to having certainty, being committed to yourself and taking action on your resolutions.   Some people fear success, others fear failure, rejection, not being good enough, not deserving/worthy of love, etc. Some people have past anger, resentment, hurt and other emotions which keep them stuck in the past and prevent them from moving forward in life. Instead, address your fears, emotions, self doubts and limiting beliefs so that you free yourself to take action towards what you really want.

The power of purpose

Always have a purpose for taking any action and for doing anything in life. For example, if you want to start a new career, ask yourself questions like:

  • For what purpose do I want it?
  • How will I feel as I am taking action towards it?
  • How will I feel once I achieve it?
  • How will I and others benefit when I have it?

Now, write down as many compelling reasons as you can for the goals you chose. The more compelling reasons you have for doing something, the more motivation you have for achieving it.

So forget those resolutions! Instead, get clear about what you really want, develop certainty around that, and have a compelling purpose for achieving it. That way you will find more passion and motivation to achieve your goals, and every action you take towards your goals will seem more effortless and enjoyable.