"Help!" With New Year's Resolutions
By Ellen Corsi

Another year has come and gone, and whether or not we want to reflect upon it, we very rarely can avoid evaluating our life during the past year. The holiday season is a time to celebrate, but is also that time of year where we start looking back and reflecting upon what we have or have not accomplished. We also may not even remember what we decided to accomplish as a New Year's resolution from the previous year. That happens a lot with the New Year's resolutions game.

You may have made a great career move last year, or bought a condo or a new house, or paid a lot of bills off to ease your wallet, or maybe you just basically did what you usually do, which is to go with the ebb and flow of life, and take what comes to you.

New Year's resolutions are a tricky thing. They start out with wonderful intentions, but as time passes, this vow to make a change, whether it is career motivated, or a personal goal, can get lost in the shuffle of everyday life.

I look at New Year's resolutions as 'goals' that I would like to achieve for the New Year. This way it takes a lot of the pressure off, especially if it is a lofty goal that I would like to achieve in the upcoming twelve months. I look at New Year's resolutions as a good time to reflect and think about where your life is headed, and where you want to take it from here.

New Year's resolutions should be attainable goals for the next twelve months. They should be realistic, as well. Whoever invented the idea of New Year's resolutions, I'm sure, looked at it as a way to move ourselves ahead by making a promise or goal that would further or better us as individuals.

With resolve and determination, it is said, we can accomplish anything that we want to do. We can become anyone we want to, it just takes hard work and commitment. No matter how you look at New Year's resolutions, it can be pressure laden. When you make these decisions for the coming year, put much thought into it before you commit. By making it a 'goal' to achieve, not only takes some of the pressure off, but if you don't accomplish it in the next twelve months, it can be something to continue striving for, as opposed to failing to achieve it altogether.

I think you always need to have goals in front of you that you would like to achieve, anyway. I think that most people have dreams and ideas of what they ultimately would like out of life. New Year's resolutions are just a way, or time to sit, reflect and decide where you are in the scheme of all of your dreams.

I believe in taking small steps to achieve your more lofty resolutions or goals. By taking small steps, you can clearly see your progress, and feel good about what you have accomplished to-date. When you feel you have accomplished something, whether it is large or small, it tends to spur you on to go further. I believe in positive reinforcement, and when you have a lofty goal for the New Year, this is the way to keep from disappointing yourself.

By choosing attainable, realistic goals, you can feel great about making changes that can positively affect your life during the New Year.

Oh, yes, and then it will be time to do this all over again! So, good luck and Happy New Year! Have a fantastic 2006!

Another take on New Year Resolutions

New Year's Resolutions You Can and Should Keep

Here we go again! Another New Year means another round of New Year’s Resolutions—setting goals and trying to keep them. Or maybe not. In fact, if you’re like most people—70% according to the Harvard Business School—you don’t even have any goals. Another 25% have goals, but only 5% have goals and write them down. Amazingly enough—or perhaps it’s no surprise—those 5% who write their goals down enjoy greater professional and personal success than the other 95% combined. Wow. Those statistics should give us all reason to take this whole New Year’s resolutions business a lot more seriously than we do.

Make and Write Down Specific Resolutions The first step toward keeping resolutions is to make them specific and write them down.

• A 1950’s psychologist named George Miller theorized that people can only deal with 7 bits of information at one time. More than 7 bits confuses and overwhelms most of us. So stick to no more than 7 resolutions.
• And you have to be very clear about what you want: a new job, lose weight, quit drinking, get out of debt.
• Get a journal and write those goals in it, very specifically detailing why they are important to you and what it would mean for you to achieve them.
• Your resolutions can be general, but compose some incremental action steps. For example, if you resolve to lose weight, be very specific by saying, “Lose 30 lbs. by June by eating less than 1800 calories a day, exercising 45 minutes every day, and not drinking beer or eating ice cream.” That specificity will give you an action plan to work on keeping.
• Also, try focusing on strengths rather than weaknesses. For example, rather than saying “I’ll quit drinking,” say “I’ll stay sober.” Success is more likely when engaging in a positive behavior than when trying to break a bad habit.

Keeping Your Resolutions Take action! Get started keeping your resolutions by tracking your progress.

• Monitoring and following up is essential. In other words, you have to have a plan and work that plan. You have to stay on top of your resolutions every day, in your journal, writing down what you did and didn’t do toward achieving those goals.
• You have to treat yourself like you’d treat somebody else: stay on your own case, question yourself, get angry at yourself if need be. You have to remind yourself and reinforce your resolutions every single day, correcting poor behavior and launching into better behavior, concrete actions that get you one step closer toward achieving your goal.
• Base your resolutions on careful consideration and make a strong commitment to succeed no matter what it takes.
• Try to anticipate the challenges that lie ahead and think of some strategies to cope with setbacks and difficulties.
• Another great idea to help keep you committed is to share your resolutions with someone: your best friend, coach, or spouse. Also, post them on your refrigerator, office wall, and dashboard. Keep them in sight and in your mind at all times.