What You Can Do To Energize Your New Years Resolutions

Did you make a New Year’s resolution for 2017?

Still holding steady, or did you throw in the towel and give up?

It’s kind of crazy, but statistics say that only 8% of resolution-makers achieve their goal.

When I heard that, I was like, “are you freaking kidding me?”

This factoid alone put my resolutions into overdrive because I’m out to win in 2017!

Or make me never want to start again…

Like those who already abandoned their resolution, I felt challenged to quit one of the resolutions I made this past week — to run one mile everyday for the month of January.

Reasons like “I’m way too busy,” “I don’t have enough time,” and “I’m too tired,” were doing their damnedest to stop me from going on my run… and oh yes, and more than once!

It’s like what the heck? A resolution can’t get much easier than running one short mile a day, except…. that it’s the month of January… with rain… and snow… and near zero temperatures = very valid reasons to stop me. Right?

(Hint: Reasons are in no short supply!)

So what can you do to energize your goals for 2017?

Read on to discover four practical steps and two crucial questions to energize your 2017 goals.

1. Prepare ahead of time. If you want to lose weight, increase your energy or improve your overall health, prepare your meals or meal ingredients ahead of time. If you want to workout more, pack your gym bag the night before.
2. Make your goal specific. By making your goal specific, you tell your brain what you are doing, it knows your commitment, like eating no sugar for 30 days, or running one mile everyday. Clear-cut goals are easier to achieve than the ambiguous “I want to lose weight,” or “I want to work out more.” With clear-cut goals you’re telling your brain exactly what you are doing, how you are doing it, and why you want to achieve it.
3. Create partnership. Join a group or enlist a friend to support you. With partnership, you feel accountable because you’re committing to someone beyond just yourself. Think about it, if you struggle with cravings or fatigue, without someone to help you create momentum, it’ll be a whole lot harder to resist that cookie or get to the gym because you had no one to help you move past the habituation of the bad habits.
4. Commit. Dig your heals in and commit. But you might be saying, “big deal, I was committed, but I still end up sitting in front of an empty sleeve of cookies and sunk into my couch, rather than going for my run! Commitment is a funny thing, it’s a whole lot like a muscle, the more you flex it, the stronger it gets. So you’ve got to work it, to grow it. That is, every time you say yes to your goal, and no to temptation, your commitment muscle will grow.
5. When all else fails there are two crucial questions to ask yourself, “Why do I want to achieve this goal?” and “Who am I?”

It is said that people will accomplish any “what” if they believe in the “why.”

Identify why you want to lose weight. Identify why you want to go to the gym? Identify why you want to develop a running routine?

Use vanity as your leverage. Use social status as your leverage. Use your competitive nature as your leverage. Heck, even use your anger as your leverage.

Use whatever it takes, because it is who you become in the process of saying no to the unhealthy and saying yes to the healthy that will loom far more meaningful at the finish line.

Now to ask the ultimate question, “who am I,’ I refer back to something I first heard author Byron Katie say, “you are not breathing, you are being breathed.

What?

Like the moon hanging in the sky, like the tide flowing in and out, like the weather changing with each season, without any effort on your part, your breath happens naturally, because a Life Force beyond you gives it to you.

Let me say it like this, what could you not do, IF you knew you carried the Force of the Universe within you?

What goal could you not achieve, what unhealthy habit could you not break, what pitiful, little reason could stop you, IF you knew you carried the Force of the Universe within you?

And the turn around? What goals could you achieve IF you knew you carried the Force of the Universe within you?

Now what?

Now that you know you carry the gifts of the Universe within you, or remember newly, it’s time to turn your resolutions back on.

Here are your action steps:

1. Prepare ahead of time. Choose two days a week to prepare to win. As Zig Ziglar says, “Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation.”
2. Make your goals specific.
3. Create partnership.
4. Commit.
5. Identify WHY you want to achieve your goal.
6. Center on WHO you are.

Have any questions? Leave a comment below. Or give me a call. I’m here to help!