“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” Jim Rohn.

Historically, the start of each year is a time for people to set goals and resolutions for the year ahead. Have you devised some clear goals and targets for 2022? How are you doing with your personal goals and aspirations for this year?

It might be that you set out with good intentions but you have decided to give up already!

At the start of each year, many people resolve to get healthier, exercise more or lose weight etc. Other goals tend to be to save more money or spend less, learn a new skill, quit smoking, find a new job, read more, drink less alcohol, spend more time with family and friends etc.

Previously I did some research on the topic and here is a flavour of what I discovered: –

  • A ComRes poll for BUPA suggested 32% of Britons make a New Year resolution.
  • It’s estimated that in excess of 40% of Americans make resolutions. Research by The University of Scranton suggests just 8% of people achieve their New Year’s goals.
  • A You Gov poll claimed 35% of people in the UK planned to lose weight, 33% wanted to get fitter and 31% wanted to eat more healthily. Other top goals included seeing more of friends and family (14%) or getting a better work-life balance (12%).
  • In the ComRes poll 41% admitted to breaking their last resolution, 63% of respondents admitted to having broken one in the past and the majority of these (66%) admitted to doing so within just one month.

People failing to follow through on their intentions can be put down to a variety of factors. It could be a lack of self-discipline, putting others needs before their own, procrastination, not getting clear on the motivation for the goal or spending insufficient time planning their approach.

Another reason that people don’t stick to their resolutions is that they have too many. Sometimes less is more!

A step-by-step approach to changing your lifestyle can be effective. One way to do this is to decide to master one behavioural change before you move onto another. This helps with focus and means that you don’t have to seek to make a whole lot of changes all at once.

This approach ties in with the view that it takes 21 days to break a habit and between 25 and 28 days to create a new one.

So, with the above in mind and in an effort to help you to be one of the 8% of people who achieve their personal goals in 2022, I suggest that you adopt a different approach to New Year resolutions this year.

How about viewing 2022 as a one-year transformation? Your life can be transformed one month at a time. You can do this by having different monthly resolutions.

You can decide at the start of each month what you would like to focus on that month in an effort to upgrade your life.

I suggest that you only take on a new monthly resolution if you feel you have successfully mastered and integrated new behaviours and habits from the previous month.

Imagine how your life will be transformed in a years’ time if you commit and successfully follow through on this new approach to resolutions.

This week why not take some time out to reflect and consider if monthly resolutions will work for you. If so, decide what your first area of focus will be.

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk