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Calm in the Chaos - Tips for a Better Life

Five Ways to Get Your Resolve Back


Wherever you stand in relation to your New Year's resolutions, following are five ways you can move successfully toward your goals for 2020.
Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

by Jamie Spannhake

January 12, 2020


Calm in the Chaos - Tips for a Better Life

Five Ways to Get Your Resolve Back


Wherever you stand in relation to your New Year's resolutions, following are five ways you can move successfully toward your goals for 2020.

by Jamie Spannhake

January 12, 2020


Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash

It’s only been two weeks since the making of New Year’s resolutions. Perhaps you are doing great. Perhaps you feel your motivation waning. Or perhaps you are not as far along as you planned to be by this time. Wherever you stand in relation to your resolutions, following are five ways you can get back on track and moving toward achieving your goals in 2020.

1. Know that you are not alone. Truth be told, about 40% of people abandon their New Year’s resolutions by the end of January. And by mid-year, nearly 60% of people will stop moving toward their goals. Clearly, most of us need some helpful guidance to craft, work on, and achieve our resolutions.

 2. Re-evaluate and reconnect with your goal. This is a good time to review your goal. Reflect on the reasons you set this goal in the first place. Did you want to have more energy, earn more money, be a kinder person, improve a personal relationship? Sit quietly and focus on how achieving this goal will make you feel. Happy? Proud? Energized? Loved? On a daily basis, as you think of your goal, shift your focus to how great achieving the goal will make you feel, rather than the amount of time or energy that you’ll need to achieve it. While it is important to stay positive, some people (like me) are also motivated by the possible negative outcome of not achieving a goal. If you find this helpful for you, you can also consider what your life will be like if you do not stick with your resolution and how you will feel if you do not achieve your goal.

3. Be flexible and give yourself a break. If you find that you are not motivated after you re-evaluate and reconnect with your goal, then perhaps it is not the right goal. Be flexible and adjust your goal until it motivates you. Continue this flexible attitude as you work toward your goal throughout the year. A lot can change in a year, so your goal may need to change as well. It is not failure; it is smart. Perhaps most importantly, give yourself a break if you do not stay on track each and every day. Life happens. If yesterday did not move you toward your goal, then acknowledge it and make the effort today.

4. Be realistic. The reality is there are 24 hours in a day, and you need about 8 of those for sleep. That leaves you 16 hours a day to live your life, handle your responsibilities, keep your resolutions, do everything else that you need and want to do, and ideally to have a bit of downtime to rejuvenate. Ensure that you have not set yourself up to fail. If you want to exercise five days a week for an hour, but your day is packed with work, parenting, and networking, that may not be possible with your current schedule. Evaluate your available time as compared to the amount of time you need to keep your resolution. If they do not sync, then you need to adjust your available time by dropping a current activity or delegating tasks, or adjust your resolution so that it requires less time, or both.

5. Ask for help. One of the best ways to adjust the time available for achieving your goal is asking others for help. Are there activities at work that you can delegate to someone to free up some extra time? Can someone else pick up your child from school and drop her at art class to give you an extra hour one day a week? Are there some things that you can just not do, or pay someone else to do? Asking for help can also mean surrounding yourself with people who motivate you or increase the efficiency of achieving your resolution. If there is a friend or colleague with a similar resolution, perhaps you can work together to motivate and support each other, and to provide a caring source of accountability. Maybe there is a personal trainer or life coach that can help you focus your goal and work proficiently so that every step is moving you in the right direction. Make the most of your time by utilizing helpful resources.

Now get out there and get on track!

A version of this article first appeared at Attorney at Work

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