New Year, New Me, New Mantra

Lizzy walks out of the class reluctantly and frowning. She had just been sent out of the Math 101 class by the lecturer for not been punctual.

"Damn! I thought I was done with this kind of life in 2019", she mutters to herself.

She stretches on a settee at the corridor, totally fatigued from the futile race she had embarked on from her hostel to the department. Suddenly, she remembers she had forgotten to say her morning prayers as was the ritual back at home. 'God when...?' she screams out loud.
A pudgy girl of seventeen, lazy at physical exercise; she yells at a woman selling french fries and ice cream. She will have breakfast right now!

Just then, Janet sights her school daughter munching hungrily at the junk foods. 'Hey Lizzy, I thought you said you were done with junks in 2019 to devote more space for bodily exercise inorder to shed some weight.
Disappointed, Lizzy stares at the floor wondering if New year resolution is really a good idea.

Yes of course! It's a great idea to make new year resolutions. They are essential goals and can increase a person's well-being because they force us to consider what we value most and they help us structure our time.

Definitely, making the resolutions is just as easy as you can imagine, not a big deal at all, but sticking to them is often the hard nut to crack.

However, if you want to get your resolutions on progress this time, then you're reading the right article! Here's good news for you:

✨Carefully and patiently make smaller and simple resolutions for a start and be very specific.

✨Write down these resolutions and make it 'public'- let your intimate friends and immediate family members be carried along. This way, you'll get serious with them because you don't want to go back on your promise.

✨Plan ahead on how to go about it and follow through this plan while checking yourself regularly to ensure that you're still on track.

✨Anticipate the challenges you might face while trying to adjust to your newly found life and visualize how you're likely to tackle them if they arise. This way, you'll be getting ready before the start date.

✨Moreover, plan on rewarding yourself often at each great feat. This will serve as an encouragement even at the initial hardest attempts.

✨It's also important to inform your creator about it, I'm dead sure you'll need sufficient grace to pull through.
Don't give up!

 

The New year is less than 24 hours away and people are already indulging in the #New Me 2020. It’s that time of the season where multitude revel in the newness of the year, indulge in retrospection and reevaluate some of their past decisions and life changing choices.

With the New Year comes a ton of resolution plans. However once the glow of the New Year wears off, most people struggle to follow through with their plans and slip back to their old ways consciously or unconsciously.

According to a study published in the journal of clinical psychology, only 46% of people who made New Year resolution were successful which means over half of people who set a goal for the New Year will fail.

Resolution is more than just writing a goal which in itself cannot be undermined, it’s more about following through, taking the next step, overcoming hurdles when faced and ultimately reaching the goals set for the year.

With that in mind, before joining the #New Year New Me band wagon.  Here's 8 exhaustive plan to note before listing out these resolutions and ultimately result in following through your resolution plan.

1. Mentally Re-evaluate

The 1st breakthrough is taking a personal inventory. Oh yes, Indulge yourself. Look inwardly to your past years.  This is certainly not your 1st resolution. Being that it’s the end of a year and the beginning of another.

Ask these questions
a) What did I set out to do the past years?
b) What progress did I make?
c) Where didn’t I see progress?

Answering those questions will better equip you with the ways you have made progress the past years, the method you can adopt and past mistakes that delayed the progress.

2. Set a goal that revolves around you.

Envisaging 2020. Being a copycat or doing things to please others is no longer accepted. Be You!  Set goals for you and yourself. Let your resolution align with your priorities, your dreams and your aspirations.
When these goals are important and dear to you, following through and actualizing them becomes an easy feat.

3. Too Much Goals???

Vision 2020, so they say. We all want to do many things, learn to speak 5 different languages, learn 10 new set of skills, have 5 side businesses, and stop 5 negative habits, basically a whole lot.
We are not robots. Having too many resolutions is a good way to not actualize these many goals you set out for.

Focus on your top priorities and merge aligned goals together. Come out with a short list of resolution that seems feasible and have better chance of materializing.

4. Run from Ambiguity "Be Specific"

"I want to be a better person" Good for you!! But the questions is better at what exactly? Do you want to be better positively or negatively?

Be specific, don't just say or write savvy resolution. A common example of ambiguity is also planning on being healthy and quitting junk food. Being healthy is great, but there are lot of things to do, or stop in wanting to be healthy (ambiguity) while quitting junk food which is a sub section of healthy living in diet and consumption is specific and great as well.

5. "BIG GOALS" Syndrome

Unless you're asked to write an essay on "Resolution plans for the year" and that’s the only way you would score high.
Setting big goals happens to the lot of us, but do we end up achieving them? Break down big goals to smaller achievable parts to increase the chances of these goals coming to life.

An example is a student with no job or means wanting to buy a Lexus 2011 model car. That's really huge and beautiful but this plan will most likely not materialize unless one's planning to steal a car or go for 2020 Big Brother Naija and obviously emerge the winner.
Break your yearlong resolution into weekly or monthly goals and focus on the next step in achieving them.

6. Write down your resolutions

Yes, yes. We know you know these goals by heart, by spirit, by body. After all, they're your well-conceived resolutions.  But documenting them is just as important.
And the why's are listed below

a) It is easier to forget, mix up these goals or get side tracked along the way. Writing it down makes you remember.

b) Writing it down sets an intention already, thus helping you to prioritize what you seek to achieve.

c) Having a written account of these set goals is a constant reminder to take action.

d) Finally, written goals are a reminder of how far you've come and your achievable feat.

 It's an awesome feeling to re-read and look back at the end of next year and know your resolution came to fruition.

Another unique idea is writing them down in a Post-It-Note and pasting it over your bedroom walls. A beautiful constant reminder when you wake, sleep, breathe to prompting you to action.

7. Share your goals with your support system

While it’s beautiful making plans and writing these resolutions, sharing these goals also make you accountable. You should share these goals with like-minded people who are looking to share, encourage and help each other improve. Sharing makes you feel a sense of obligation and accountability to deliver. Another beautiful thing about sharing is you have more than yourself to gear you up during slacking moments, the sense of guilt creeps in when you realize you are likely to disappoint, thus gearing you up again. And when you do win, you have like-minded people to celebrate with.

8. Take it slow and steady

In as much as there's measurable time factor in these resolution, there's still 365/6 days, 52 weeks and 12 months. Don't be in a haste. As long as you're being consistent, and actively working out to achieving these goals. It will take time for these resolutions to fully cut out to reality. Of course, setbacks and frustrations will be a part of the journey and rightfully so to make the story sweeter and juicier. A few mistakes shouldn't make you give up.

Peradventure in a month's time you start failing at your resolution attempt, don't be hard on yourself. It’s normal as changes is one of the trying things ever albeit constant. Resolution doesn't need to be tied to a new year, you can always start again tomorrow, Tuesday, Valentine's Day, anytime.

Ultimately, following through with whatever plans you're about to make or have made is key. Don't focus on the end result alone, focus on the steps, mistakes, hurdles and the wholesome journey. Go all out on the small wins to gear you up for more to come and work earnestly in eliminating the distraction or more importantly turning these distractions to attractions. 

Here's to wishing you a prosperous year with actualization of the resolution plans visualized!