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When the New Year rolls around, it’s only natural to start thinking of the year ahead and the resolutions you want to make. But, how quickly do your New Year resolutions fall by the wayside? For many people, it’s as early as 2 weeks into January. It’s estimated that 80% of people that make resolutions will fail at them all together. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about the negative fall out of not reaching your resolutions and how to create goals in a way that’ll help you stay productive.
How many times have you set out on your New Year’s resolutions and then felt discouraged the first time you messed up? It makes it really easy to stop trying, even after one mistake. Maybe you have the willpower to continue trying, but with each time you fail, it leads to a lot of negative emotions like:
- I can’t do anything.
- I’ll never be able to make this change.
- I’m a failure.
- I’m disappointed in myself.
- Others are going to be disappointed in me.
- Why can’t I get it right? I’ve tried for so many years.
How Your New Year’s Resolutions May Be Wrecking Your Production
Anytime that you get into a negative talk spiral, it will affect your ability to get things done. When you feel like a failure in one area of your life, it bleeds over to other areas. Then, you have this looming problem over your head that takes your motivation and ability to work on the things that you are good at.
When you are in a production-based job, struggling to get things done can lead to losing clients and/or less money. This only adds to the spiral, making it that much harder to pull out of it.
So, if your New Year’s Resolutions are hurting you, should you even bother? We say yes! But, we think there is a better way to do it and it’s not the same for everyone.
Just like anything we talk about on the podcast, we want to show you different perspectives and ways of doing things so you can find what works for you and put it into place. The whole idea behind Empowering Productivity is that we want you to break the mental chains that bind you and keep you from getting stuff done.
Here are a few things we recommend:
1. Stop Making So Many New Year’s Resolutions
When you look at the most common New Year’s resolutions, you will see that most require a lot of energy, planning, and willpower. Here are the most common ones:
- Lose weight
- Save money
- Earn more
- Read more books
- Travel
- Learn something new
- Quit Smoking/Drinking or some other bad habit
- Spend more time with your friends or family
All of these are great things to add to your life, but thinking that you can juggle several time-consuming changes will set you up for failure.
I think one of the reasons that people make so many resolutions can be for several reasons. Maybe they think they should have multiple resolutions because:
- Everyone has a lot of resolutions or making many changes at once.
- You don’t realize how much time any single change you want to make will take.
- You want to revolutionize your life as fast as possible.
Instead of trying to make several changes at once, focus on the most important thing you want to do.
2. Look at Your Motivation
A lot of people make resolutions that are not right for them. In this case, there’s little chance for them to succeed. Even if they do succeed, they may end up stressing themselves out to keep up with these goals.
Do you make these resolutions out of:
- Guilt – you feel guilty about your choices.
- Should – you feel you should do things, because it’s a good thing to do.
- Copycat – other successful people do this thing, so to be successful, you think you need to do it as well.
- Pressure – your friends or family are making changes, so you feel pressured to do the same.
Without the right motivation, you are not going to make it very long. Negative motivations almost never result in a positive outcome.
You have to find a motivation that is bigger than any excuse you may make. It’s much easier to stick with changes when you truly believe that what you are doing will make a big impact in your life. If you’re just doing things out of guilt or because you have been told you’re supposed to, you won’t be successful.
3. Ditch The Resolutions and Focus on Change
Instead of resolving to do XYZ this year, focus on the change you want to make, not necessarily the method that you are using.
Here are a few things to ask yourself:
- What is the most important thing you want to change in your life? – Most people have a big problem in their life they need to resolve. Pick the biggest problem and work with just that problem first. Don’t feel bad that you’re not tackling the problem that other people think should be your focus. It’s not their business.
- Why do you want to change it? – Write out your motivation for the change. If you find that you want to change something because you feel pressured, then step back and re-evaluate your goals.
- Do you do better if you are all or nothing? Or do you do better with making small changes? – Everyone is different when it comes to making changes. Some are able to decide they’ll make the change and it is all or nothing. Others need to ease into it.
- How long can you commit to making the change? – It’s ok if you don’t decide to make the resolution for the rest of your life…or even the entire year. Can you make a week? A month? How long do you want to commit? It’s better to do healthy things for a short time than to never do them at all.
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4. Figure Out Which Method Inspires You And Go For It
There are many methods you can try to make changes. Here are a few common things people do:
- Concrete goal-setting – Figure out the specific goal you want to reach and then break it down into smaller goals.
- Vision boards – Develop a 100-foot overview of the life you want to have and create visuals for what you’re working for.
- Word of the year or theme for the year – Come up with a word or theme that describes what’s most important to you to accomplish that year.
- Take a challenge – Join a group challenge or create your own challenge to do something for a certain period of time. You may decide to keep going after the challenge or stop, but either way, you made progress.
- Create a bucket list – Put things on this list that you want to do this year. It might be to read a specific book, visit a certain place, develop a new relationship, etc.
Closing
One thing a lot of businesses resolve to do in the New Year is get that website updated like they’ve been talking about for months and months! R5 Website Management is here to help you take your online presence to the next level. If you need a new website, an update to your website, or maybe just some new content like blog posts or email newsletters, we’ve got you covered.
Email us at [email protected] to get started today!
Until next week, get out there and start breaking the mental chains that are keeping you from producing!
