Making A New Year's Resolution

It's that time of year again. That time when you start thinking about what your going to do differently next year. And lets be honest with ourselves, a new year's resolution isn't something you've been thinking long and hard about for the last couple of months. I know I haven't. It's one of those things you come up with a week before ringing in the new year. That doesn't make the new year's resolution useless though.

There is definitely some merit in the making a resolution for the up coming year. There has to be since so many millions of people do it. But just as many people make a resolution and then fail to stick with it. But I don't believe that's for a lack of trying. It comes from poorly defined resolutions. Below are a few things to consider as you make your new year's resolution.

• Narrowly defining your goal: The better you define your goal the more likely you are to achieve it. This is true not only for new year's resolutions but for research, policy making, business models, etc. A goal like " I will be healthier this year" is hard to define and even harder to stick to. What does that statement mean? How are you going to be healthier this year? Without knowing where you are going with your goal it is more difficult to achieve it. It's also difficult to set up a plan for achieving that goal if you haven't defined it. For example you can be healthier in many ways. You could exercise more this year. You could quit smoking. You could eat less sugar. All three of those could lead you to being healthier but without a defined goal it is hard to place those steps into a workable plan. A better way to define the goal of being healthier would be to say "I will lose X amount of pounds this year."

• Choose a realistic goal:  So you have narrowly defined your goal to "I will lose X amount of pounds this year." Now you need to choose a number to replace that X. But you need to really consider a realistic goal. And this true for any goal not just the goal of losing weight. Let's say you want to read X number of books this year. Replacing that X with 200 books is probably really unrealistic unless you have nothing else to do each day except read. Let's say for example, come September you have only read 75 books that year (which still seems like a lot) you are going to be really disappointed with your progress and so you might say I'm never going to reach that goal so I'm not going to waste my time trying to read more. Now that's not to say you shouldn't choose a goal that challenges you. You should. That's the point of a new year's resolution, to push yourself to do something you wouldn't normally do but it should be an obtainable goal.
   
• Create a plan: So now you have defined your resolution as losing 50lbs this year. Now how do you go about losing that weight. If you just say you are going to lose 50lbs but don't create a plan you are probably not going to achieve that goal. Losing those pounds or reading those books is not going to happen on its own. You should create an exercise plan for losing that weight with a target weight for each month or week. However you break down that goal and choose to reach those milestones it doesn't matter. What matters is that you have created a step by step personal guide for achieving that goal.
     
• Find your motivation: You are going to run into many walls during the year as you strive to reach your resolution and it is important to find a way to keep yourself motivated during those hard times. If your losing weight it might be a dress or pair of pants you want to be able to fit into that will keep you going. It is also helpful to have someone else striving towards that goal with you. You can keep each other motivated when things get tough.

Me personally I want to grow this blog in 2012. My goal is to have 35 followers by next year and have 200 page views per day. So keep these few tips in mind when you are trying to figure out what your goal for this new year's will be.