Our New Year’s Resolution
The New Year begins and we smile and hug ourselves as thoughts of thousands of new opportunities dance in our heads! Scraping the old, yucky and mangled, and eagerly grasping the shiny, new and clean is exciting. We begin to dream and plan our New Year resolution that we know will be a huge success. We add our resolution goals to the talk around the table with our friends and walk away with stars in our eyes. This year will be the year it all changes and we give ourselves a fist pump and plunge into actively pursuing our big vision.
Discouraging Pursuit of Success
The first days pass in high spirits. Then, the week comes that the ‘shiny’ begins to wear off and it turns into a task. But we push through with pride in our high determination. Then, one day, our grind becomes slower and slower. The struggle gets real and hard. Our New Year’s resolution is not going as planned. We sit back and survey the tiny progress and the dripping sweat. Pulling out the visions of our beloved goals, we groan and begin to rethink the importance we’ve placed on this New Year’s resolution we thought we treasured and desired. Was it truly worth all this?
A Worthy Try
We nod our heads and push ourselves back into the grind. But the push didn’t create much momentum and, before long, we’re sitting back to rethink again. This time we look around to see how our friends are progressing. They’re not even in sight. We look back at the road of time and realize that they quit a good while back.
Patting ourselves on the back, we recognize that we have given our New Year’s resolution a good shot. With a nod, we tell ourselves that we made the mistake of aiming too high and requiring too much of ourselves. We hug our goals and dreams, give them a kiss and tuck them back into the corner. Wiping our hands and washing our face, we turn back to the welcoming arms of our comfort zone and sink into the warmth of complacency while comforting our conscience with praise of a worthy try, even if our resolution did not go as planned.
Planning for Success
What went wrong? Why did the determination not see us through the hard? Maybe we forgot the most important part of goal setting! The very part that brings success! Just maybe we forgot the part about planning.
Planning is the life-breath of goals and dreams! Too often we forget to break down our perfectly attainable goals into bite-sized segments. Instead, we become overwhelmed by the hugeness of our vision and give in under the pressure. All New Year’s resolutions are attainable if we first create a doable plan of action. And that plan must be tailored to match our habits and personality. We are the only ones who know what we will or will not give up to attain. That knowledge is what will help us set a plan of action into place. And we can begin planning a New Year’s resolution that will be a success.
Breaking Down Our New Year’s Resolution
Planning our New Year’s resolution into weekly or monthly goals and then celebrating the small wins is what helps to keep us striving forward. Overwhelm is easier to combat when we begin to enjoy the accomplishment along the way. Charting our progress gives us a sense of satisfaction that we are truly making headway and that the grind is worth it. Instead of trying to conquer the vision all at once, we focus on conquering each section one at a time. And, one week at a time, we claim victory on our way to the finish line!
HIGH Success
So let’s call for a meeting of friends around the table again. Let’s talk all about our goals and dreams. But let’s not just talk, let’s pull out our pen and paper, and write our beloved vision across the top. Then we can begin planning a New Year’s resolution with the small steps that we need to be taking each week (or month) that will propel us forward to success. As we write each step down, we will give it a due date to keep us on track. And, right before we get ready to part ways, let’s decide on the next date to meet because we know that accountability will boost our success. We’ll give high-fives and walk away with the tools we need to accomplish our treasured vision with high success!
