04 Apr New year, new you…in autumn…
As we set into Autumn I thought I would look back and ask the question about how many New Years Resolutions are still in force and how many have been broken.
How many new years resolutions did you set? How many of them have you already broken?
Why do we set new years resolutions to start on the 1 January? How come we can’t set new year resolutions in September or tomorrow or better yet from now?
Generally our resolutions are around being better versions of ourselves, which usually include obtaining better health, exercising more, self improvement, better financial decisions, spend more time with family/friends, do more good deeds and quit smoking.
Why do we do it to ourselves, put pressure to make so many changes all at once, from the 1st day of the year, when we know we are likely not to succeed?
Let me get the statistics out of way first, to give you more encouragement:
- 8% of people stick to their new years resolutions
- 72.6% of resolutions are broken within the first week
- 58.4% of resolutions are maintained for 1 month
- 44.8% of resolutions are maintained for 6 months
If we know that only 8% are successful, then why do we set them? Is it because we are bringing up the dissatisfactions of the previous year and want make sure we don’t want the same dissatisfaction this year or we would like a set personal road map of how we envisage a successful year would look like. Maybe we set them because it makes us excited about the changes we could make and how those changes would impact our life. All these things are amazing things, then why don’t we stick to our goals? Usually the reason we don’t stick to any goal is because the ’The Why’ is not strong enough.
I know when I was getting married, I had goal to look good on my wedding day, whatever that means, I don’t know, but I made a promise to lose weight for my wedding. Leading up to my wedding I starting training and eating well, and before I knew it, in my eyes, I looked great. I even had to change the suit to a smaller size just before the wedding, but the thing I took from that experience is that, when I look back, it was not an effort at all, I didn’t even join a gym, I just trained with the equipment I had at home, there was no personal trainer and I didn’t overcomplicate things. I looked and felt amazing at the time, but since then I have been trying to look like i did on my wedding day, and i haven’t had any luck, not even close…maybe I should get married again just so i can lose weight..don’t tell my wife i said that.
My point is that, when the why is so strong in your mind, nothing can compromise it, not even you. It is effortless as your eye is on the prize not the process, when we get caught up in the process we get distracted with the minor steps and pitfalls, which stop us from achieving our goals.
Personally I believe in setting goals that are very specific and I try to break it up into baby steps, and not move onto the next step until you have mastered the previous step. What I don’t agree on is setting these goals to start January 1st and to lose weight, stop smoking, spend more time with the family and become a better person all on the same day, its not going to happen.
Its never too late to set your goals now and make steps towards achieving them.
Here is a video that Simon Sinek explains the importance of why, which has been watched over 35 million times.
http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action
I have also ventured into the social media space and now use Instagram as a means of educating my audience, I will also start to be more active on other social platforms, I will keep you posted. If you have Instagram you can follow me @oktay.sengoz
Until next week….
