Making New Year’s resolutions – and keeping to them for a change!
January 11, 2018

This year, there’s a chance you might do better! Below we explain how to take meaningful decisions that will improve your life. With the right plan, you can become one of those people who actually achieve their goals.

Take meaningful decisions

Countless New Year’s resolutions are broken even before January comes to an end. In most cases, this is due to people making the wrong resolutions. The three main reasons for failure are the fact that the resolution relates to something expected of us by the rest of society, that it is formulated too loosely, or that there is no realistic plan of how the goal can be achieved.

Be smart and SMART

A wise choice of resolution is just as important as its practicability. We have borrowed the term SMART from the field of project management and are now trying to apply it to our personal lives, because this is where the key to success lies.

S = specific

When formulating a New Year’s resolution, you should be very precise. Don’t just say “I want to lose weight”, but specify how much within what space of time. If you formulate your resolution with the words “I want to lose three kilos in the next two months”, your chances of succeeding will be far higher.

M = measurable

Staying on the subject of losing weight, measurability is very simple in this case. But even if you want to give up smoking, it’s helpful to keep an exact record of how many cigarettes you’ve smoked when and the reduction you’ve achieved so far.

A = attractive

Ask yourself whether the goal in question is really the right one for you and whether you have selected it for the right reasons. If you’re feeling guilty or hate yourself for doing something, making resolutions is probably just a waste of time. Short-lived enthusiasm is a poor basis for good decision-making. It’s better to take a long-term view of what could improve your life. That way, you will subconsciously take steps in the right direction and allow people into your life who can help you keep up the stamina.

R = realistic

This doesn’t mean to say you’re not allowed to have ambitious dreams. However, if you demand too much of yourself at the start of a long journey, there is a risk of you soon feeling frustrated by your failure or of your life becoming dominated by the pursuit of the goal to the exclusion of other important things such as friends and family. The goal of saving €10,000.- in a short space of time is not easy to achieve. Drawing up a savings plan that requires you to save €100.- per month in the early stages and later top up the amount whenever possible makes the goal more readily achievable.

T = time frame

Just as it is important to stay “realistic”, you should also set yourself a sensible time frame. On the road to achieving your goal, you should celebrate small successes in order to stay motivated for the long march ahead. If you want to change something on a long-term basis, you need to plan for decades, not just for the next three weeks!