New Year’s resolutions are not a new phenomenon; the origin of making New Year’s resolutions rests with the Babylonians, who made promises to the gods in the hope that they would earn good favour in the coming year.  4,000 years on we still mark the end of a calendar year by reflecting on what we have achieved and setting resolutions for the year to come.  But very often we have forgotten those resolutions before the end of January and we have reverted to previous habits.  Research suggests that only 12% of people who make resolutions, feel that they have achieved them.  Here we explore how we can ensure that we achieve our resolutions.

Share with our mentor

The first step is to share that resolution with others, allowing them to check up on our progress and allowing them to support and guide our journey towards achieving our resolutions.  Of course a great person with whom to share our resolution is our mentor.

Be specific

Resolutions can often be vague ideals, for example – I will achieve a promotion or I will get fitter.  A mentor will help us develop our resolutions into a set of goals, which will drive us towards achieving the resolution.

The best goals are incredibly specific, with clear steps to take us from where we are now to achieving the results we desire. The more specific we can be when breaking down our goals, the more likely that we will achieve them. When goals are broken down into manageable and measurable pieces, we are able to track our progress and stay focused. This helps ensure that we keep working on the goal until we accomplish it.

Our mentoring platform has all the tools to guide you through the process of identifying goals, setting SMART goals and tracking your progress to achieving these.

Limit our goals

Richard Wiseman, a professor of psychology at Hertfordshire University, suggests that we should pick just one goal and focus our energies on that rather than spreading ourselves too thinly across a number of different objectives.  Achieving even one small goal can boost our self-belief and self-confidence, encouraging us to go on to focus on our next goal. Whilst taking on too much all at once can be daunting and can result in giving up on our goals.

Plan, plan and plan again

When faced with a goal we should brainstorm how we will tackle the change, including the steps we will take, why we want to do it, and ways we can keep ourselves on track.  Making a detailed written plan can help us stick to our goal. It allows us to consider the tactics we will use when we are faced with challenges. If we start working toward a goal without any type of plan in place, we may quickly find ourselves giving up when faced with any sort of obstacle, setback, or resistance.

Keep our goals visible

We are more likely to continue working towards our goals when they are literally sat in front of us. Great techniques are writing our goals on a sticky note and keeping it on the side of our laptop or on the front of our notebook; as well as keeping a document where we can keep track of our progress and physically tick off individual actions as we make progress. The more time we spend seeing our goals, the easier it will be to focus on progress.

Learn and adapt

Keeping track of progress can be motivating, but also keeping a detailed journal, where we write about our successes and struggles can help us to learn what motivates us and what causes us to falter and how we can cope effectively.

Encountering a setback is one of the most common reasons why people give up on their goals – or their New Year’s resolutions.  If we suddenly relapse into a bad habit, we should not see this as a failure, but as an opportunity to learn about ourselves, helping us to be better prepared to deal with challenges in the future.

Continue to share with our mentor

Undertaking the above steps allows us to learn about ourselves whilst achieving our goals.  Throughout this process we should share with our mentor what we are learning, feeling and achieving.  This candour provides a real insight into what drives us, enabling our mentor to provide bespoke support, guidance and advice thus helping us to achieve our goals more effectively and efficiently.

Why not sign up to our mentoring platform today and keep your goals on track in 2024.