I always say that I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but I definitely use the time off over Christmas to re-evaluate things. It’s the same as the “back-to-school” resolution, or the “back from holidays” ones. Plans to improve myself, my health, my home and my work life balance.
My non-resolutions look the same every year. Get fit. Sleep more. Lose weight. Do more of this and less of that. There’s an odd different one every year, but it’s pretty standard.
Why are they always the same? Simple. Because I never stick to them, so there’s always room for improvement.
Until now!
I heard a radio interview recently that said you need to do something 66 times to become a habit, this myth of three weeks is a lie. That’s 33 weeks of going for a run before work 2 mornings. Or 66 weeks of going to yoga on Monday nights, or 7 days of doing pelvic floor exercises 10 times.
The problem with resolutions, or with goals in general is that they’re too ambitious. Too big. Sure where would you start with “getting fit”?
I’ve worked for large corporates for ten years and I’ve often benefitted from (and been subjected to) management training. Occasionally, the tools in these training courses have helpful applications in the real world too.
One trick that I’ve picked up recently that I’ll be employing this year in my personal (and blog) life as well as my work life is a “90 day plan”. Let’s face it, a resolution for a year loses focus.
Here’s how it works:
Set goals for the year, be it to run a 10km race, declutter the entire house, redecorate a room, learn a new skill or to lose 2 stone.
Give yourself no more than 5 goals. Fewer goals should equate to more focus on the ones you have. I think 3 is ideal.
Then, break each goal down into short actions you need to take to reach that goal. The first one might be to buy runners, or go to the recycling centre, that’s fine. The easier they are the more likely you are to be able to tick them off.
Next, identify which of the smaller actions can you achieve this month. What about in 6 weeks or 2-3 months?
Choose which ones are priorities and do them first.
Give yourself 90 days, see how you make progress and update the plan as you go along. After 90 days tick off the actions you’ve done and write a new 90 day plan to follow on on the completed actions in the previous 3 months.
Keep the plan somewhere you’ll see it- in the fridge in my case!
By breaking the big goal down into smaller, less daunting tasks it should make them easier to achieve.
Good Luck!