Are you one of the 80%?

…who will fail to meet their New Year’s Resolutions?

We’re already into the 3rd week of the year! What progress have you made with your New Year’s Resolutions?

If you’re like 80% of people who make New Year’s Resolutions, chances are, you’ll have made zero progress and that’s the way it will stay for the rest of the year!

Some of the most popular New Year’s Resolutions are:

1. Lose weight
2. Pay off credit cards / debt
3. Run a marathon
4. Read more
5. Learn a language
6. Get organized
7. Quit smoking

There are also some new ones feeding in to the popular lists:

1. Spend less time on Facebook / Twitter
2. Clean out my inbox
3. Go Green
4. Find my passion/ purpose in life

We make New Year’s Resolutions with the best intentions (and sometimes a few too many glasses of New Year Cheer under our belts!) but for many of us that’s as far as we get.

So how do you become one of the 20% to succeed instead of one of the 80% who fail to change?

Here’s five practical tips:

1. Work out whether it’s worth the cost

The first thing to do is decide how much you really want it. Usually New Year’s Resolutions require you to make changes in your lifestyle, whether that’s eating less, exercising more, spending less, giving up the 2nd car etc. These changes have a downside cost attached. Spending less might mean going without that new designer handbag, exercising more might mean getting out of bed 45 minutes earlier, selling the 2nd car might mean learning how public transport works.

If you are serious about making change and achieving your goals then you need to make it a priority. That means deciding that you really want it and that you’re prepared to pay the price. The cost might be financial, time, a cost to your family. If the cost is too high then you just won’t do it. That’s ok too. Just face that fact and stop kidding yourself. As Einstein said “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” if you want change, you need to do something different.

2. Get specific and make sure it’s achievable

The more specific your goals, the more chance you’ll have of achieving them. Instead of saying “I will lose weight”, a more specific goal would be “I will lose 1/2kg per week until I reach my goal weight of x”. To make it even more specific, focus on the areas you can control for example, “I will exercise for 45 minutes, 5 days per week, only drink alcohol on weekends and follow a healthy eating plan until I reach my goal”.

It’s also important to make sure that your goal is attainable. If you set yourself a goal that is unrealistic, then you will almost certainly fail to achieve it. In fact you’ll probably give up at the first hurdle. Using the weight loss goal, if you said “I’m going to lose 2kgs per week, then the first week you lose less than this (which for most people will be the first week!), then you’ll become disheartened.

3. Start with the end in mind

What I mean by this is, try to imagine what it will be like to achieve your resolution. How will you feel, what will be different, what might others say to you. Some people go as far as creating some kind of vision board but simply spending a few minutes thinking about why you’ve decided on your resolution and what achieving it will mean to you, can be just as powerful.

I prefer the carrot over the stick approach myself, but it can be powerful to imagine the negative consequences. How will you feel at the end of the year when nothing has changed and your resolutions have failed….

4. Get Support

You don’t need to go it alone. Enlist the help of others to keep you on track and keep you accountable. That might be a friend, family member or colleague or it might be a professional like a coach, doctor or trainer. The most successful people in the world have a support team around them so get yours in place.

A study in the UK of 2000 people by Prof. Richard Wiseman, author of 59 Seconds: Think A Little, Change A Lot, showed that people who told friends and family about their resolutions had a 34% success rate, compared to only 25% of those who kept it to themselves.

There are people who know more about it than you so why not take advantage of their knowledge. In these days of social networking, your support team doesn’t even need to be someone you meet face-to-face. Enrol in an online course, join a community, find a forum. For lots of people, even meeting a partner is done online today.

5. Stop Procrastinating!

Take action. We’re already into the 3rd week of the year so you should have made some progress already. Don’t wait until next Monday to start, get going today! If you don’t know where or how to start, ask for help. Just DO something – some progress is better than no progress.

So, don’t be an 80%er. Put these five tips in place and join the elite 20% who fulfill their New Year’s Resolutions.

Welcome (back) to Transformeblogs 2011. If you liked this post, please share it with others by clicking on one of the links below.

Did you set New Year’s Resolutions? If so, what kind of thing? If not, why not?
Have you made any progress with your Resolutions? What have you done? What’s stopping you?
What are your top tips for making sure New Year’s Resolutions are realised?