Every year nearly 50 percent of us resolute to become better women in some way. According to statistics, many of us want to drink less (alcohol), eat healthier, lose weight, or get a better job. Well, it is great that you want to improve yourself. However, here’s the problem. Only about 19 percent of us ever realize our resolutions, and here’s why.
We fail to give ourselves a clear resolute that we can actually achieve. Saying your going to lose 10 pounds is too vague. You’ll have a much better chance of losing that weight if you resolute that your going to work out three times a week and limit any snacking after 7PM. Those are clear, actionable goals that are easy to decipher as to whether or not you are following your prescribed regimen.
Another interesting tip according to research, is to keep your resolutions private. The reasoning is that when we share our goals to others, we are in a sense giving ourselves the reward in advance, in the form of people patting us on our back and saying, kudos to you for making such a good goal.
A better method is to keep your goals a secret, and that way the real reward will not be acceptance from others, but rather the satisfaction of actually achieving them. I also highly recommend avoiding negative incentives, such as telling yourself your fat when you get the craving for a chocolate sundae.
The problem with negative incentives, is it has the tendency of burning into your self description, until you eventually start to believe you are these things. If you are constantly reminding yourself that you are not good enough, these ideas will eventually become a dark shadow on your sleeve that will forever bring you down. Instead, use positive reinforcement.
Here are several additional ideas to help you make this years resolutions stick.
