Make New Year’s resolutions you can keep (Part 2)

How few there are who have courage enough to own their faults, or resolution enough to mend them. Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790 In my last lesscon, I outlined the five elements necessary to achieve real, sustainable change with your New Year’s resolutions. The resolutions must be your own — what you truly desire to change The benefits of change must outweigh the cost You must believe you’re capable of change You need to optimize your environment for change The change needs to become a ritual or habit I also elaborated on the first two items, which are key in …
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New Year’s resolutions you can keep

New Year’s Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving Hell with them as usual. Mark Twain 1835 – 1910 It’s that time of year again: most of us will look back on the past twelve months with a bit of dismay over the things we didn’t do. We’ll brood over the goals we didn’t accomplish and we’ll promise ourselves that next year will be different: next year we’ll make major improvements to our lives. Unfortunately, most resolutions aren’t kept. It may be a new year, but it’s the …
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Forget what and how

It doesn’t matter what you do, it matters Why you do it. Simon Sinek 1973 – If you’re still setting your goals for the year, I suggest you avoid making big, life changing resolutions, because historically, most of them aren’t kept. But if you insist on making resolutions, then at least forget about the what and the how. Instead focus on the why. Why focus on the why? Well, Delaware University Professor Julia Belyavsky Bayuk ran an interesting experiment that demonstrates a surprising point: focusing on the what and how can actually work against you in achieving your goals. For …
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