The tree is dressed up. The mood is festive. New Year on the nose. It's time to promise yourself to live the next year somehow so that it differs from all the years lived. When we come up with New Year's promises, desires and goals, our motivation goes wild. At this moment, we are really ready to turn the mountains and do everything necessary for the plan to be realized. What happens then? Why is it so difficult to keep New Year’s promises and what to do?
To be honest, nothing and no one will force you to fulfill your New Year's promises. You can even talk about them in social networks to all your many friends, counting on the fact that their support and reproaches will encourage the implementation of the plan.
But practice shows: nothing will help until you take your promises seriously. Forcing yourself to fulfill New Year's promises will only help a systematic approach. What exactly needs to be done?
Step 1. Write down your promises.
It is very useful not just to digest thoughts in your head and dream, talking to yourself, but to write down everything that you want to achieve, receive, change. To start, you can make a list of your promises or desires.
This list can have any number of items. They usually stop at 50 or 100. You may have less or more.
Step 2. Evaluate - is this really what you want?
If you simply make a list and forget about it, miraculously some points from it may be realized. It happens to everyone. But to get even better results, you need to go further.
Evaluate how important it is for you to keep a promise? Ask yourself a question: do you really want to get what you intended?
You can rank all your New Year's promises on a scale of 1 to 10: 1 - I don’t want to, 10 - I really want it to happen.
Choose those promises that you rated at 9 or 10 points.
Step 3. Think about what will happen if the promise is not fulfilled.
Now look at those promises that scored 9 or 10 points, and think about what will happen if you do not keep the promise. What positive and negative consequences await you?
At this step, you will have a feeling that your list has those desires that need to be fulfilled immediately, without putting them off for later.
As a result, five or seven New Year's promises should remain for execution in the new year. Is it possible more? Sure. But then it will be difficult to focus.
Researchers generally do not recommend setting more than three goals for a year. You can listen to them.
Step 4. Turn Promises Into Goals
Not a single New Year’s promise will be fulfilled if it is not turned into a goal. But the goal can be set in such a way that it will never be achieved.
For example: "I want to lose weight."
It seems to be understandable what in the end I want to get, but there is no binding to the date. How to determine that the goal has been achieved is also not clear.
A well-formulated goal should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-limited.
For example, you can reformulate the goal as follows: "I want to get rid of 10 kilograms of excess weight by May 31, 2019."
Step 5. Step into the movement towards the goal
An important stage that everyone misses is the decomposition of the goal, that is, the planning of steps to achieve it.
To make the plan effective, break the movement into small steps. For example, it is clear that to lose extra pounds you need to establish nutrition and exercise.
If you just take these two big steps, it is unlikely that something will work out. Each of them must be divided into smaller ones.
Step 6. Track the movement throughout the year
Goals and plans are made. The only thing left is to learn how to control progress according to plan.
To do this, you can create a table in which every day to note whether something has been done to achieve the goal or not done. This is the easiest way.
Still need not to forget about the award. For motivation, it is better to think about how you will reward yourself at each stage.
But it’s better not to use fines. On the contrary, they can discourage the desire to act.