Here are some strategies for preparing for your next successful resolution:

Pull A Weed By Its Roots. Stopping a bad habit? It is essential that you understand the root cause of the behavior. If you don’t address the psychological attachment to the problem, any behavior changes will be short lived because the psychological need will still be there waiting to be fulfilled. Pull the problem by the roots and fill the hole with a healthier alternative.

Prepare Now, Commit When Truly Ready. This part is tricky because you don’t want to get stuck in preparation mode and procrastinate on starting your resolution. Yet when you have the information, resources, tools, plans, backup plans, and support systems in place you’ll be better equipped to handle challenges that arise along the way. Make a plan that gives yourself time to prepare, yet also challenges you to have your preparations completed by a meaningful start date.

Visualize Success AND Failure. Do you see yourself sticking to your new habit or will it probably taper off after a few weeks? Visualize how this could potentially play out so that you can make contingency plans in advance. How about scheduling a resolution re-commitment ceremony in your calendar 3 weeks from your start date?

The Snowball Effect. It helps immensely when we can see the fruits of our labors early on. So start off with smaller and more manageable goals, rather than overwhelming yourself with huge commitments. For example, start by making a goal that you can achieve within the next two or three weeks. By resolving to reach smaller goals, you’ll sooner see successes. Experiencing successes keeps you motivated to add more goals…resulting in more successes. You get the picture.

Is Your Resolution SMART? Your goals should be specific and measurable. It’s not very effective to say, “I want to lose weight this year so I’ll start going to the gym more.”  Try writing your first weight loss target in your wellness journal or calendar: “My goal is to lose 4 pounds in February, which breaks down to one pound a week. Starting today I am going to the gym every Monday and Thursday after work at 6:00pm. Right now I am going to put my gym bag in the trunk of my car.” When Thursday arrives, this specific plan is already in place, the preparations have been made, and the routine has been automated. Now, enlist a workout buddy to hold you accountable and you’re well on your way.

Which days of the week and time of day do you have peak energy and willpower? Schedule your resolution actions for then. Don’t go to the gym after work if that’s when you feel most depleted. You’ll associate the gym with being tired, hungry, and cranky.

Reward success. Reward the successes you’ve achieved through hard work rather than punishing yourself for setbacks and missed goals. Guilt, regret, and punishment may get your butt out the door for the first couple weeks but they aren’t great motivators over the long term. We inevitably feel bad from constantly beating ourselves up and call the whole thing off. As you prepare for your resolution, figure out what your rewards will be. The key here is that the rewards must be intrinsically meaningful to you.

A good friend of mine uses a unique reverse-psychology reward. If she misses her scheduled day at the gym, she has to donate $10 to the political campaign of a politician she dislikes. It’s both a punishment and a reward and it works!

While positive reinforcement is usually the focus with this kind of advice, a healthy dose of reality can be as or more motivating. Ask yourself, what is the consequence of not changing my habits? How would NOT changing impact my body, my lifespan, my loved ones, my career? Write an impactful letter to yourself containing all of these factors and read it whenever your motivation is low.

Reframe Setbacks. The moment you realize you hit a setback is the moment you can recommit to your original goal. Acknowledge how you could have done things differently and then move on from it. Immediately. The setback is now in the past so don’t dwell on it. Reframe it as a growth opportunity.

Reframe Mindset. Speaking of reframing, you might just need to reframe your mindset at the onset of this process. Do you have a fixed or growth mindset? If you want to grow as a person but have a history of having an inflexible fixed mindset and struggle with life change, resolutions could prove very challenging. Consider reading the book Mindset by Carol Dweck.

Enlist Help. If you’re not good at praising, rewarding, and reminding yourself, enlist a resolution buddy (or buddies). Eh hem, your favorite career-life coach, perhaps? Set up a check-in system where they email, text, and call you periodically. This keeps you accountable to someone and that’s helpful when you’re tempted to slack off.

Tell your accountability partner in advance all of your favorite go-to excuses so they can call you out on them!

Some advice givers tell us to take make our resolutions public, like an announcement on Facebook. Others say that can set us up for feeling shame if we don’t reach the goals we announced. This one’s your call. Would an announcement keep you motivated because you don’t want to fail publicly? Or will your goals be kept between you and a supporter or two?

Refill Your Will. Renowned psychologist Roy Baumeister warns, “Each person’s supply of willpower is limited. And, as the “power” aspect of willpower implies, it’s a form of energy. It gets depleted when you use it.” Starting a new behavior or quitting an old one takes willpower, of which, according to Baumeister, we have a limited supply. If we establish too many goals requiring willpower, we’ll become mentally and physically exhausted. We’ll fail. Remember, start with one manageable piece and add more later. Again, seeing success will help refill your will [i.e. the snowball effect].

Refill Your Cup. Know what fills up your resilience cup so that you have an ample supply of mental, physical, and spiritual energy to drink from. Resilience helps you bounce back from setbacks and clear hurdles. Check out my Psychology

Sound like a lot of work? Let’s not sugarcoat it, success in all forms takes a lot of work and willpower. As psychologist John Norcross says, “Take resolutions seriously or don’t take them at all.” 

SOURCE:www.psychologytoday.com