It’s that time of year again. You’re thinking about what you want to change for the new year.
The things you want to do differently. The activities you want to engage in or stop – lose weight, stop drinking so much etc, etc, etc.
Most people – it’s estimated at 92% – will fail at their new year’s resolution.
Which makes me think – why bother?
Why bother setting yourself for failure? It’s not a great way to start the year. I’d much rather be doing something that gave me a good chance of success and made me feel good in the process.
Which brings me to the Alternative to New Year’s Resolutions.
Rather than making your resolution an activity to start or stop, why not focus on how starting or stopping will make you feel? In other words, why do you want to do it?
Danielle La Porte, a life coach, who I personally think is very cool, has a whole programme called The Desire Map which follows the theory that you set goals and chase things for how you expect they will make you feel. She talks about flipping it so you think first about how you want to feel and then set your goals in alignment with that.
Personally, I think this is a great strategy.
If you’re thinking about weight loss, rather than focusing on the scales, focus on how good you’d feel slipping into that favourite outfit. And how good it feels to be eating healthy now because feeling healthy was part of the weight loss dream.
If you’re thinking about business or work goals, think about how you want to feel – successful, free from money worries, capable – then build some smaller things into your week that make you feel like that on your way to your big goal.
Because it’s how you want to feel that drives most goals, if you can start generating those feelings now, you’ll be halfway there and being rewarded internally for your steps towards it instead of feeling like you’re failing because you haven’t reached it.
So flip your New Year’s Resolutions and let me know what they are.
