Empoword Community

Every year on December 31st, millions of people across the globe make New Year’s Resolutions - a concrete list of goals, dreams and intentions for the coming year. By early spring, most will have abandoned this list. Don’t be one of them!

Here are three things you can do to achieve resolution success:

Remember: thought impacts outcome. Attitude sets the tone – positive or negative – and corresponding thoughts follow. Those thoughts affect your behaviors and influence your decisions. Attitude shapes your life.

If you think of exercise as a painful chore, it will be hard to do. But if you think exercise is a great way to achieve an important health goal, suddenly it is something worth trying. All that changed was your attitude.

There are always multiple of ways to look at and think about a situation. You, and only you, have all the power and control to decide what your attitude will be.

You are looking for movement, not perfection. Achieving goals and realizing dreams is a process. Be prepared and be patient.

You are working on moving away from negative behavior, toward more positive actions. You are moving away from feeling out of control, toward feeling more in control. You are moving away from feeling helpless, to feeling empowered. Notice progress, no matter how small.

Break your goal down. Take baby steps. Achieving a small step will feel great, and that will motivate you to move to the next step. Over time, you will be achieving your goals and dreams.

You will forget. So plan accordingly.It’s a new year and you are motivated, determined and committed. You are sure this will be the year the resolutions become realities. You won’t forget.

But life is busy, hectic and full. It is easy to lose sight of our goals and dreams in the chaos of daily life. We forget to make ourselves the priority. Knowing this alone might be the most effective way to ensure you stick to your New Year’s resolutions. Notice when you start to get sidetracked, when you start to skip workouts or grab chips instead of carrots.

Don’t worry, this is part of the process. Don’t beat yourself. And don’t give up. You knew this was going to happen. Make a plan now. What will you do when you start to forget?

A quick Google search will give you lots of tips and pointers (including Empoword’s New Year’s Resolution Worksheet) on ways to stick to your resolutions. Don’t use them all this January. Pick one for now, pick another for when you first start to forget. A second for the next time you start to slip, and so on. Before you know it, you will be creating a whole new set of resolutions for 2010, because your goals and dreams for 2009 will have become realities.