Published:

02/23/2019 09:33am

Making New Year’s resolutions stick

While some of us are great at keeping our goals, the majority of us fail in the first 10 days of the new year and then simply give up. The reason for this is that many of us don’t have a structured plan in place or we don’t even know where to begin. We start with too many new year resolutions in mind or a generalized broad vision like “we want to be happier” or “we want to get healthier” and then we haven’t the best idea how to go about it.

We also tend to start our goals and new year resolutions off on the 1st day of January but alas a few of us are curing an excruciating hangover or coming down off the high substance of sugary foods we severely abused over the holiday period. Reality check – the first few days of January are somewhat depressing. And there’s nothing wrong with that. My first 2 days I spent on a plane, inhaling the dreadful stench of someone’s socks and leftover turkey breath. To preoccupy my anger toward said passenger, I tried to write up some goals in my new journal. That didn’t last long. You know the saying “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” – it’s used to encourage optimism in the face of adversity. Well… sometimes, this clearly doesn’t work, so eventually I asked to be moved from the lemon so I could enjoy the remaining flight journey and begin focusing properly on writing some clearly defined goals for the year.

It doesn´t matter what your goals, aspirations, career ambitions and dreams are, developing self-awareness is the first step to getting you there. Self-Awareness is having a clear representation of your personality – what are your strengths, weaknesses, values, principles, beliefs, feelings, thoughts and emotions. Once you understand the real you, what drives you, what inspires you, the easier it will be to focus your energy on what is important to you and where you want to go this year in your career and life.

Whether your ambition is to build a solid relationship or climb the ladder to get promoted this year, you first need to understand yourself more. Once you understand yourself more and become more self-aware, you become more mindful of your emotions and behaviors and how they have an impact on you and those around you. Self-Awareness allows you to understand other people, and detect how they perceive you to be.

During the month of January we talk solely about Self-Awareness and discuss many topics that will help you discover your true abilities and how you can achieve your goals and new year resolutions.

We start by covering the following exciting topics this month.

The Subtle Art of not giving a f*ck – Mark Manson
What is Self-Awareness and 12 ways to becoming more self-aware
Find what you’re good at and work on it
The powerful story behind of Susan Boyle
Top 5 books and podcasts on self-awareness
7 habits of highly effective people – Steve Covey

Sticking to your New Year’s Resolutions

Purchase and keep a personal journal

Keeping a journal is a great way to build and improve on your habits, and it allows you to become more aware of your actions and behaviors. For example If you’re watching what you eat and drink, keeping a food diary is one of the best ways to pay closer attention and has been proven time and time again to help people eat more healthy.

Regular Exercise and a healthy diet

A healthy diet and regular exercise can prevent conditions such as heart disease, depression , different types of cancer, Diabetes, high blood pressure and arthritis. The list is endless. Too many of the wrong foods and lack of exercise can put you at risk, but the right foods complemented with exercise can actually boost your body’s ability to fight disease. What’s also worth noting is that both diet and exercise can have major effects on your mood. Proper diet and exercise are two major factors in overall mental health. Both help reduce stress and depression and can increase endorphins making you feel happy and good. If you can’t be bothered with a full diet just reduce your sugar and processed food intake and get out and do a little exercise. At least it’s a good start.