We’ve all been there. The moment when we decide things are going to change. We’re going to eat better, be more organised, get our life together. Unfortunately, our will power often doesn’t last. How many of us have already given up on our new years resolutions?
So, how can we make sure we stay on track and achieve our goals?
Contents
It’s all about learning how to build your willpower and not deplete it.
Hands up if you’ve ever started one of those Monday morning diets? The lifestyle change where from 7am on Monday you will be “Healthy”.
Or you might have done it with another goal. Some popular ones include:
- Wake up early everyday/get more sleep
- Read more books
- Improve business skills
- Stop Procrastinating
- Travel more
- Save money
- Spend more time with family
- Learn another language
- Be more organized
Here’s my success story.
I am a sugar addict and in the last 18 months or so I have slowly been gaining weight. However, in the last few months I’ve started worrying more about getting diabetes. Plus. the waistbands of my jeans got so tight that I think they might have started cutting off the blood supply to my legs…
I hate the idea of a diet and I know starting and sticking to one is something I found really difficult to commit to in the past.
So, this time round, I decided I would do just 1 simple thing.
I told myself that all I had to do was resist the daily can of coke I’d been having for the last few months.
No other restrictions. I could eat cake, pizza – whatever I wanted but I had to try to meet my goal of not having soda drinks. Some people might think that’s easy but I was addicted – I craved the stuff everyday!
Guess what happened with this small change?
I instinctively started making healthier choices without feeling like I was forcing myself.
I even started doing more exercise. I’ve lost weight and looking back, it all seems to have been fairly easy. This was all triggered by my one goal to stop drinking Coca Cola.
So what worked this time when I had failed so many times before?
It’s simple. I chose 1 small goal to focus on instead of trying to make overwhelming life changes and it was specific, measurable, realistic AND sustainable.
There’s lots of research that states that willpower like a muscle that needs to be exercise. Some experts also believe that like a muscle, willpower can get fatigued from overuse.
Trying to constantly resist temptations, change habits and doing things that require us to use our willpower is likely to result in burnout or in my case, a binge on everything sugary that I can get my hands on.
We have to stop pretending that we can just flick a switch and starting being that “perfect” person. The one who eats well, exercises everyday, is super organized and had the ultimate work/life balance – all while running a business like the ultimate #girlboss.
Be honest with yourself
Look back at how many times you’ve set a goal which requires big life changes? How many times have you failed? New Years resolutions are a perfect example of this. Every year, millions of people set goals and a huge number of them give up within months if not weeks.
Make 1 or 2 SMALL changes and start building on them.
Keep them relatively easy. Once you start having these small wins, they’ll spur you on to bigger and better things. You’ll build on each win and achieve more.
Plus, if on some days you don’t achieve these mini goals, it won’t feel like such an overwhelming failure because you know you can get back on track fairly easily. This keeps things sustainable – it doesn’t matter if you achieve your goal if you end up sliding back to where you started a few weeks or months later.
Setting big goals often results in us giving up because we’re giving ourselves so many points in the day where we could fail. We put ourselves under constant pressure and give ourselves more opportunities to “fail” rather than succeed.
Choose 1 -3 mini goals
As long as they’re a positive change in the direction of your bigger goal you’ll notice a difference. You’ll find it so much easier to commit to the changes long terms and you’re much more likely to reach whatever huge goal you really want.
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