I was sitting here thinking about New Year’s resolutions. It is almost 2 weeks since New Years and I wonder how many people are still steadfast about sticking to the commitments they made to themselves on January 1st. How lofty are your goals?
When you set goals, often times you are looking for instant gratification instead of for a true life change. You make a list of what you are going to change. Overnight, you will change all your bad habits without regard to situations, circumstances, and triggers. These goals although exciting and motivating are put in place without a road map. How are you going to accomplish your goal? What do you need to do to overcome an obstacle to reaching your goal? Have you ever achieved this before? How did that go? What would you change? What can you change? Without a clear path to how you will reach your goal, it often ends up a failure. After a couple weeks, you can’t understand why you haven’t lost 5 pounds, why you garage is still disorganized, why you still haven’t written those thank you notes, and why you are stressed and disappointed. So – You just give up! During this defeat, you feel as though you have failed when really, you didn’t fail, you just didn’t complete the process for effective change.

When it comes to lifestyle changes – it is about changing gradually to achieve permanent success. Baby steps in a constant forward movement are going to get you much further than a few giant steps that you can slip back from.
Make a plan. Figure out what you want and then break it down into do-able,
small steps. Notice how much easier it is to stick to and watch how they become habit. No deprivation or feelings of frustration if you learn to handle on change at a time. And while you’re at it – pat yourself on the back at a job well done!