Happy New Year, 2019
Updated: Jan 17, 2021
I thought it best to wait past the felicitations, festivities, and celebrations of the holiday before sending a happy new year message/newsletter. Along with proper nutrition, a devotion to self-improvement and a renewed commitment to family, exercise and gym membership are the next most renewed resolutions yearly.
Here’s what’s interesting, research shows that 80% of promises to the gym in January do not make it past May (that’s five months), and 4% of new gym members in January renege on their resolution before the end of the month. Not to be a Debby-downer, resolutions are reasonable; however, follow-through is more important.
Here are three simple actions to help you follow-through on your resolution.
1. Write down your goals: If you haven’t already written them down for 2019, do so. When writing, make them SMART: specific measurable achievable realistic and timely. It may take several iterations, but you’ll finally get one that feels right.
2. Have an accountability partner (AP): this is someone you share your goals with. It could be your spouse, sibling, colleague, or prayer partner. It’s not a bad idea to have an AP for each target. You could also make your resolutions public; this might encourage you to stick to them if you’re one often concerned about public perception of you. Now is probably a good time to encourage you to limit your goals to no more than ten items. Quite honestly, 10 is perhaps a lot, but it all depends on the depth and size of the goal/ resolution.
3. Measure your success: If you can’t measure your goals/resolutions, it makes it difficult to follow-through. If there aren’t ways to account for your success by standard, you’re less likely to follow-through on them. Write down measures at different stages, for instance, a quarterly assessment of your weight is a good measure.
Having said all that, we must be reminded that our God has given us the grace to be in this new year, saying thank you to him is fulfilling His plans and purposes for us. Let The Spirit of God guide you in all your resolutions, goals and objectives this year and always.
Best wishes,
L.B.