7 tips for setting realistic New Year’s resolutions

New Year, New Life!

You get excited about the end of the year. Deep inside you rejoice at the opportunity to start or restart projects and dreams. As you throw away what is not part of the “new life” deck, you feel a little lighter. But, what do you really need to be able to carry out your wishes so that they become reality? What is necessary so that you don’t give up, if not in the first months of the year, at least as time goes by when other events claim your attention?

7 tips for setting realistic resolutions for the New Year:

1. Write what you really want and what is relevant to you

Write down on paper what you want to achieve during the coming year. Be concrete and specific. For example: “I want to take better care of my health. To do so, he will take more care with his diet; he will exercise more, going for daily walks; he will find a hobby that is different from his usual occupations, which allows him to distract his mind”.

2. Reread to confirm if what you have written is really important to you

How will you know? Rank what you have written, giving greater value to what you consider to be the most important. If you cannot achieve anything else, it is your aspiration that has the highest value, the one to which you will devote all your attention and energy until you get what you want. And you will only dedicate yourself to the others if you do not compromise the achievement of the most important one. As Goethe said: “The most important things should not be subordinated to the least important”.

3.Arrange incentives to help you achieve

There are people who are very disciplined and determined to persist in achieving their goals and do not need extra incentives. However, not all people are equal, not all goals have the same degree of ease. So get social benefits; For example: the conviviality associated with the pursuit of a goal; or material stimuli; or a self-established reward: doing something you do not normally do, giving yourself a present, etc.; or other monetary motives: if you decide to stop smoking, the money you used to spend on cigarettes is saved to be used on something of great value to you.

4. Make it easy to begin

Imagine you want to introduce a new habit in your life, which is to drink more water during the day. So that you don’t forget, you can associate drinking water with something you already do; for example: drink a glass of water before your usual meals. In this way, you will associate a new behaviour with a routine that is already established, which makes it easier to start and continue.

5. Take it slowly

Imagine you decide that in the new year you will start walking more. As it is difficult for you to start with a one hour walk every day, you can start with 15 minutes and gradually increase until you reach your goal.

6. Set concrete and realistic goals

Be concrete in your goal and at the same time realistic. To know to what extent you are being balanced, you will have to ask yourself to what extent it is possible, in the circumstances of your personal, family and professional life, to undertake your new goal. For example: going to the gym every day might not be possible, but going twice a week might be.

7. Make a STOP

Stop regularly to check whether you are achieving your goals or the plan you have set out. Stop for identify other simpler and more enjoyable ways to reconcile achieving your goals with other areas of your life.

Get inspired!

After all these considerations to define realistic resolutions for the New Year, I leave you with some iideas for setting goals to make your life in 2019 fit your aspirations:

– Choose what you want

• Habits to cut or remove for better physical, emotional and mental health;
• People you will pay more attention to or change the way you relate to;
• Ideas that you want to reinforce because they are motivating and thoughts that you want to transform in order to go further;
• Travel, hobbies or interests you will cultivate;
• Skills you want to acquire and professional goals to achieve;
• Something you will do to contribute to a better world;
• ….

– Find an ally

Get an ally to whom you can communicate your goals and ask for help in establishing a plan or defining strategies to turn your aspirations into reality. It can be a colleague, a friend or, according to the importance and complexity of your objectives, you can even work with a professional and experienced Coach, who will help you to motivate yourself, to confirm the relevance of your objectives and decisions, and will be able to accompany you in following up the achievement of your resolutions.