Tips to Help You Set and Keep Your Goals or Resolutions

How are your New Year's Resolutions holding up for you? A few short weeks ago we had big plans and so did all of our friends. We were discussing the things we'd accomplish this year and everywhere we went on the internet everyone else was doing the same thing. It's only 3 weeks into the New Year and none of those goals and dreams has been mentioned since. We still have them in the back of our minds, "Oh yeah, I was going to exercise more", but it's soon just another passing thought. It's not too late. This is the perfect time to really start working on those things. If you keep waiting for the perfect time, it's never coming. The perfect time is now. It always is and always will be. So what can you do to finish out the first month of a new year with the intentions you started with?

You need a plan of action for your plan of action. It sounds redundant, but it's actually true. If you don't have a plan of action you'll never see any of your goals come to fruition. Having a good plan of action isn't always enough though and you need to plan out your plan of action.

Was your goal to lose weight this year? It sounds good in your head and even looks good on paper. But writing down "lose weight" on a piece of paper doesn't make it happen. You have to get a little more involved than that. Writing a goal down does make it visible and tangible, but you need to get into some detail. Describe your goal, make it as specific as possible.

Example: "I want to lose 20 pounds by April 1^st. I want to fit into my favorite pair of jeans and that low cut blouse. I will look better, feel better, have more energy and people will notice me when I walk by."

Now it's a real goal. But you still need to go a step further and write down how you will achieve this goal.

Example: "I will drink 2 glasses of water each day. I will stretch for 10 minutes every morning before I get dressed. I will take the stairs when I can. I will park further away from the store."

Make the steps small and manageable. It's not very manageable if you start off with the full 8 glasses of water a day, 30 minutes of stretching and 30 minutes of aerobics. Your goals need to be done in small chunks that you'll stick to. Once every week or two, re-work your goals to add more steps. Increase your water intake to 4 glasses a day, 20 minutes of stretching, etc.

After you've gotten into detail with your goals, you need to make them visible. If you can't see them on a daily basis, you're likely not going to stick to them. The old adage, "Out of sight, out of mind", is very true.

Another simple trick to stay on track with your goals is to start writing in a daily journal. This journal will be special. You don't need to write out your whole day, this journal is specifically for your successes each day. That's all you need to write in it. Even the simple things that you may not consider a success need to be written down.

Example: "Today I skipped desert." "Today I practiced deep breathing."

Some days it make only take a minute or two of your time to write down your success for the day, other days you may have a whole list of things. Just make sure you write it down every evening. Before long your list of successes will get longer and longer as you get better at taking small steps towards big goals. Do not write down your failures in this journal. This is your personal success journal and only good things can be written in it.

Do you find that you lose motivation too easy? A good way to take care of that problem is to make a game out of everything. You're tired at the end of the day and don't even want to think about half an hour of exercise. It's understandable. Make it a game. Tell yourself you're only going to do 10 minutes of exercise, and then do it. Most likely after 10 minutes you'll feel refreshed enough to finish the whole 30 minutes. If you don't, all is not lost because you did accomplish 10 minutes instead of nothing.

Another great tip is to challenge yourself. You need to straighten the living room, clean the bathroom, etc. See how much you can do in ten minutes. At the end of ten minutes, set a new challenge and see how much you can do in 8 minutes. Keep life fun and entertaining so you don't become bored with the mundane things we must do in life.

Not only will you start to feel better about reaching goals, you'll make major accomplishments in everything you do by increasing your productivity. Many small successful steps lead to big success.