It’s that time of year again. New Years Resolution time. Most people treat it like a do over. I didn’t do it last year, but I can do it this year. Sadly the cycle tends to repeat itself. The statistics are pretty depressing.
According to the Opinion Corporation of Princeton NJ:
* 62% of people make New Years resolutions
* 8% are always successful
* 19% of people achieve resolutions every other year
* 49% have infrequent success
* 24% NEVER succeed
So what is this year going to look like?
If you want to improve your chances of success, here are 10 tips to improve your chances.
- Write down your goals for the year
- Create goals that are short term and long term. Group goals into 1 week, 1 month, 1 year (or whatever makes sense for you)
- Put your list of goals somewhere that you can see them every day
- If you are trying to lose weight, take a before picture of yourself and post it somewhere that you can see it daily
- Do something on your goals list first thing every morning
- Exercise at least 20 minutes 3 times a week
- Read at least one of the following – The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss or Getting Things Done by David Allen
- Use a service like http://www.habitforge.com to input your goals (it’s a free service that sends you reminders for 3 weeks and forces you to respond to each email reminder. It definitely forces you to think about your goals.)
- If you have a smart phone, find a reminder tool that tracks your todo list both on your phone and on the web. I personally prefer Remember The Milk (often referred to as RTM) – http://www.rememberthemilk.com
- Identify those things that you have been putting off, that you could delegate to someone else. It could be your kids, a student, someone on http://www.fiverr.com , a full time VA or a service such as http://www.fancyhands.com.
Happy New Year!
Rob
