It’s the end of the year and we are just a few days away from the start of the new year. You have make a list of goals and dreams that you want to achieve in your life during this coming change.
You wish to lose that excess weight, that goal that you have been writing down year after year; you have set-up a new notebook, pencils and index cards for that new language that you want to learn, or for that musical instrument that you hope to learn how to play.
A long list of tasks that you never get done, asking yourself why is this so hard?
Well, all is focused on HABITS. Habits are the reason why accomplishing new goals is so hard. Allow me to explain what a habit is.
What is a habit? It is a choice that we constantly make until it becomes part of our everyday routine, without us noticing it. The adopted behavior has became automatic.
In order to change your life, you first need to change the daily patterns that your brain has learned and memorized. If you don’t find new routines, the pattern of habits will unfold automatically.
The problem with all of this is that your brain has no way of distinguishing between a good habit or a bad habit.
It is said that it takes 28 days to create a new habit, and many years or months to re-create an old habit into a new one. There is a point where we lose our ability to control them.
That being said, I would like to humbly share with you 7 steps, I believe will help you accomplish your New Year’s resolutions:
- List all the bad habits that you consider are negatively affecting the new goals you are writing down and trying to achieve. Take the time to analyze your behaviors and how these are influencing you willingness to make your goals happen.
- Detail all the routines that you want to change in order to have a better quality of life, and focus on your new goals.
- Spend time alone, talking to yourself. Confront your inner self, considering why you so convinced that it is necessary for you to change your old routines and bad habits.
- Create a detailed list of the new habits you want to start – including steps of how you plan to achieve these, target milestones, and rewards for reaching these.
- Share the list from step 4 with someone you trust, who can actually check up on you constantly. Make it public.
- From the list of habits, choose to make happen only one. The reason for this is because genuine change requires a strong will, determination and discipline. Studies have shown that when we make a lot a changes at once, our body and brain become emotionally, and sometimes physically drained – hence, this is why we often abandon our goals.
- Create a whole new routine to adapt the new habit in your life. Creating new patterns to undo and unlearn the old routines will force the brain to focus on this new routine and set aside what you were doing.
Celebrate the smalls wins, give yourself a reward. Even tiny successes are big changes in your brain. A “one day a time” attitude will help you conquer the new habit.
Your will power is new everyday. Every morning is a fresh start, a new opportunity to do it better. If you happen to fall off the wagon or fail during your day, DO NOT SABOTAGE YOURSELF! Just forget about this day, and focus on doing it better the next morning. Keep going, keep fighting.
Habits are not as simple as these appear; but teaching yourself new routines, remaining disciplined and following the direction you have chosen for your new life will help you start to change while growing in other unnoticed areas of your life – as a result of the new routines for this new habit.
New routines create new habits, and therefore unrelated areas will change too.
Once this new habit is created you will easily accomplish the new goals. Be aware of what triggers your desire to go back to old habits, recognize the cue and avoid situations that put you in danger of casting aside your new goals. Congratulations! You are half way done in accomplishing your New Year’s resolutions.
You might want to check this : https://jenniveth.wordpress.com/2020/10/19/why-you-should-not-give-up-on-your-dreams/
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