New Year's Resolutions
With the beginning of a New Year, you can feel the change and the momentum and hope that this year will be a better one than last year. Everyone' talking about their plans and resolutions for the year and I'm being asked what mine are.
I've never been the type of person to make New Year's Resolutions simply for the fact that I'm the type of person who will end up breaking them within the first week. I also feel very strongly that if you're going to make a life changing decision, you shouldn't have to wait until the New Year to do it.
But just out of curiosity, I decided to do a little research on how many people keep their New Year's Resolutions, and the statistics were shocking. One study said that more than 75% of people who make a resolution break it by the end of the 6th, and the reason is usually because their goal was unrealistic or it wasn't time line driven. For example, many people say they want to lose weight, but they don't put a number or a time line on it, so they keep putting it off or get discouraged. Or they may say that they want to lose 15+ pounds by the end of January, which, unless you are a contest on The Biggest Loser, isn't going to happen. The experts say that if you should make it something that can be measured in small amounts and have a time line. For example, if you want to lose weight you could say, I want to lose 5 pounds a month until I reach my goal of 20 pounds of weight loss. They also say that another reason for failure is that people focus on the negative aspect of not achieving their goals and end up losing their motivation and feeling horrible about it at the same time.
Another thing people do that backfires is that they wait until the last minute to make a resolution and don't have any sort of plan, support, or the determination to actually keep the resolution, and they suggest that if you haven't at least thought about your resolution before December 31st, don't bother making one.
So given the statistics, I'm actually glad I don't make New Year's Resolutions because I would just make those statistics higher.
But I do believe that setting goals for change is a positive thing, and can result in a more wonderful you. I started my goal for weight loss way before the New Year started, and even though I haven't seen quite the results I was hoping for by the end of December, I am seeing results and I'm very, very excited about it. My goal was very realistic, I wanted to lose an average of 1 pound a week until I reached my target weight of 125, and although I've had some set backs along the way, I've averaged a little over a half a pound a week. Not bad for a first try at losing weight. But had I waited to start until the New Year, by this time next year, I wouldn't have achieved it all.
I've never been the type of person to make New Year's Resolutions simply for the fact that I'm the type of person who will end up breaking them within the first week. I also feel very strongly that if you're going to make a life changing decision, you shouldn't have to wait until the New Year to do it.
But just out of curiosity, I decided to do a little research on how many people keep their New Year's Resolutions, and the statistics were shocking. One study said that more than 75% of people who make a resolution break it by the end of the 6th, and the reason is usually because their goal was unrealistic or it wasn't time line driven. For example, many people say they want to lose weight, but they don't put a number or a time line on it, so they keep putting it off or get discouraged. Or they may say that they want to lose 15+ pounds by the end of January, which, unless you are a contest on The Biggest Loser, isn't going to happen. The experts say that if you should make it something that can be measured in small amounts and have a time line. For example, if you want to lose weight you could say, I want to lose 5 pounds a month until I reach my goal of 20 pounds of weight loss. They also say that another reason for failure is that people focus on the negative aspect of not achieving their goals and end up losing their motivation and feeling horrible about it at the same time.
Another thing people do that backfires is that they wait until the last minute to make a resolution and don't have any sort of plan, support, or the determination to actually keep the resolution, and they suggest that if you haven't at least thought about your resolution before December 31st, don't bother making one.
So given the statistics, I'm actually glad I don't make New Year's Resolutions because I would just make those statistics higher.
But I do believe that setting goals for change is a positive thing, and can result in a more wonderful you. I started my goal for weight loss way before the New Year started, and even though I haven't seen quite the results I was hoping for by the end of December, I am seeing results and I'm very, very excited about it. My goal was very realistic, I wanted to lose an average of 1 pound a week until I reached my target weight of 125, and although I've had some set backs along the way, I've averaged a little over a half a pound a week. Not bad for a first try at losing weight. But had I waited to start until the New Year, by this time next year, I wouldn't have achieved it all.
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