It’s January as I write this, and it’s all too common to hear people saying that their New Year resolutions have failed already. In this post I’m going to cover the 3 top reasons for them failing…
Some people do make resolutions intending to stick to them, but for a lot of people, it’s a joke to make them, and it’s a joke when they don’t stick to them. No surprise then, that this is the first reason for them failing – they were never meant in the first place!
You *have* to believe your goal if it is to happen. This is why I’m not a fan of the whole New Year resolution thing. Setting a goal then expecting it to fail may seem like a laugh, but in fact you are telling your subconscious that you are incapable of setting and achieving goals.
Not only does that failure therefore come true with the jokey New Year ones, it also carries through to any other goal you set, unless you take the extra steps to get rid of those negative beliefs you gave yourself in the first place!
The second reason New Year resolutions fail is that they aren’t defined well enough.
‘To be happier’, ‘to have more money’, ‘to lose weight’ may seem at first glance to be good resolutions, but in fact they are woefully bad when it comes to defining them.
How much money are we talking, exactly? How much weight loss, exactly? What do you think will make you happy, exactly?
Can you see? You have to have an exact description of your goal, so that a) you know when you’ve achieved it, and b) you can make specific plans to get there.
That leads to the third reason for failing to achieve goals, be it New Year or otherwise, and that’s a lack of planning and/or action!
If you don’t know what your next step will be to get to your goal, how on earth will you take it? And setting a next step is not enough by itself, you actually have to take the action needed. That may sound obvious, but a trap in the goal setting process is to think that setting a goal is the same as achieving a goal – it isn’t – it’s the action taking that makes or breaks any goal.
So, if your New Year goals have hit the rocks already, go over your goal with these 3 reasons in mind, then set the goal again, believe it, define it, and act on it!
Have you been guilty of any of these? (I know I have!) Do let me know, I love to get the feedback.
By the way if you want you can discover the full 8 steps of my goal achievement formula.
‘Til Next Time,
Health & happiness,
Gordon
