4 Tips to help you achieve your 2023 Goals!
January is the start of the new year! New year’s resolutions, new challenges( 30-day challenges begin), new workouts, new relationships, new friends, maybe for some, a new job, and hope for new customers.
I have a question for you.
Can you remember what your goals were for 2022?
Did you achieve them?
If you fell short of reaching your goals, do you know why?
Studies have shown that, by February, approximately 80% of us will not achieve our New Year’s resolution goals. Wow, that is a staggering percentage.
We need to understand Why New Year’s resolutions are so popular.
It gives us a clear starting point. The beginning of a new year and new possibilities draw us to participate. Secondly, the beginning of a new year invites us to imagine our future, “improved” selves. This projection of whom we’d like to be can be exciting and motivating.
But what if this way of thinking sets us up to fail from the start?
When you look back on failed resolutions from years past, you may notice that they suffer from common pitfalls such as:
An all-or-nothing mentality
An overly ambitious mindset
Not being specific
An emphasis on achieving goals vs. building habits
To achieve your goals, it does take a certain mindset, and more importantly, to achieve your goals, it takes you creating the proper habits. Habits that become a way of life for you while giving you the momentum to keep making progress.
I want to cover some obstacles that might be standing in your way.
An “all-or-nothing” mentality
New Year’s resolutions tend to encourage “all-or-nothing” thinking. Goals like Dry January, where you don’t drink the entire month. I will exercise for an hour every day when I haven’t walked for 15 minutes. We set our goals so big that with the slightest slip-up, we give up.
All-or-nothing thinking can be the result of self-sabotage. Without realizing it, many of us may believe we’re undeserving of success. We’re constantly battling with ourselves as we subconsciously engage in behaviors that actively make achieving our goals harder.
The key is visualizing the person you want to become and what habits and behaviors align with that person. Making progress is the key to you staying on the path.
An overly ambitious mindset
In the excitement of the New Year, it’s easy to set overly ambitious goals that don’t reflect your current reality. One way to set yourself up for success is gradually building each day to sustain your plan and create a better system. Thinking smaller may not feel as inspiring in the short term, but it can lead to more inspiring results.
For example, if you want to exercise more and are not doing anything. It will be challenging to start exercising every day for an hour. Instead, start by walking for 15 minutes three days a week. Then add ten more minutes or another day. You’re creating a lifetime habit.
Be more specific
Sometimes, New Year’s resolutions fail because they’re too broad. “Exercise more,” “eat healthily,” and “save money, are examples of goals that lack any specificity.
Three reasons why this can be a challenge for you:
They’re not actionable. Knowing what you need to do to achieve your goal is challenging.
They’re difficult to measure. Creating mental milestones of success is difficult, as there’s no clearly defined end goal.
They lack accountability. You aren’t accountable for hitting anything without a target. If a goal is too vague, it can seem more like an aspiration.
Build habits vs. achieving goals
New Year’s resolutions often fall short because they encourage a goal-oriented rather than a process-oriented approach. We want to develop habits for our life versus a narrow focus on achieving a single goal.
A goal-oriented perspective can motivate some, but it can be too black-and-white for others. Even if you progress towards a goal, you’ve technically “failed” by not achieving 100% of it. On the other hand, habits focus more on the journey than the result.
Measure your goals
It is wishful thinking to have a positive mindset and hope to reach your goals. It’s another to measure your progress. Be clear on the specific steps you need to take by doing the following:
Give yourself a clear, well-defined goal. For example, “I want to add five new clients” vs. “prospect more often.”
Set clear benchmarks to measure your progress. For example, ” I will ask for three introductions a month from current clients” vs. “prospecting twice a week.”
Celebrate your progress
Celebrating your progress can give you the motivation you need to stick to your resolutions in the long term. We need to know that there is a reward in it for us. So reward yourself for performing a specific behavior; the brain engages the dopamine feedback loop. Once triggered, this loop releases some feel-good dopamine and makes us associate that behavior with a positive feeling.
Rewarding yourself for reaching small milestones doesn’t just make you more likely to achieve your goal. It also makes the process much more enjoyable! So, before you commit to your resolutions, take some time to decide exactly how you want to reward yourself for hitting benchmarks along the way.
I believe it starts with you!
Define your success.
The habits vs goals you create.
Measure your progress.
Celebrate your successes along the way.
The famous saying, “If it’s to be, it’s up to me”! That is so true.
Followed by what you focus on, you get!
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