How to succeed with New Years Resolutions

Hi folks, & Happy New Year!

Fed up of making new years resolutions that don’t stick? We all have goals for 2013 so here’s how to raise your chances of success:

1. Choose a goal that YOU actually want to do, not what others want you to do. 
2. Positive psychology – focus on doing things rather than stopping things; e.g. instead of ‘I want to stop eating so much junk’ change it to ‘I will eat more healthily!’ (if we're busy doing the positive things then we'll automatically stop the negative things) 
3. Be Specific e.g. ‘I will aim to eat more vegetables each day’.
4. Make sure you can measure it. ‘I will eat 4 different vegetables each day’
5. Make it achievable; make sure it’s something that you are physically able to do.
6. Make it realistic; is it something that you can fit in to your lifestyle?
7. Give yourself a deadline! make it less than 12 months otherwise we are tempted to ‘put it off’. It’s even better to break your ultimate goal down in to related medium & short term goals using the steps above.

You can use the template above for any goal you like, even for getting work tasks done (workplace health projects). If it ticks all my 7 rules then you've given yourself the best possible start! Next step preparation - be pro-active & get any kit together you might need.

Have a great one!

james