Why You Should Not Make
New Year’s Resolutions

And how you can achieve your goals anyway

Flat belly, running faster and better relationships please… oh, and of course more motivation and energy for everything else. The list we make every year is endless. There’s always something we can complain about and we feel like resolutions might be the best solution to finally improve. But they aren’t.

How often did you stick to your resolutions? Each year is supposed to be better (at least we think this) but two weeks after New Year’s day we find ourselves in the same situation like the year before. But why isn’t it working?

Resolutions aren’t solution

They can be an approach to the solution but they are not the solution.  We expect ourselves to stick to our goals but that’s not that simple and a resolution won’t start working unless you do.

Resolutions are passive. You have to be active to achieve your goals. With this being said, let’s talk about the most important thing; where it all begins: the mind.

„I’ll start on Monday!“

“I wanna lose weight but I have cheated the whole week, so it doesn’t make sense to start today, I’m gonna change eeeverything on Monday. I promise!”

How often did you say something like this to yourself? This is the worst excuse of them all. Postponing your changes will only be disadvantageous.

The same goes for the New Year: “I have eaten cookies the whole month. I change everything next year.” Yes, we do but most of the time just for a couple of days.

We postpone the starting signal until New Year’s Day or a Monday and by doing so we raise our expectations. On this particular day, everything will change; I will change completely; I will do it differently this time… No, you won’t. Neither will I. That’s ok. That’s human.

We just shouldn’t set a day X where everything is ought to change. How should this work? We need to change step by step. There’s no fast lane to this kind of improvement.

It takes time, but for sure, it doesn’t need your postponement.

The Solution

1. Write down your goals as specific as possible!

You need your goals written down and you need them specific. This is the only way to visualize and finally achieve them. But don’t just write down “I want this and that until…” Instead, write “I will have done this and that until…”

Make sure, you have to achieve what you set yourself up to. You can do it.

2. Don’t put off things

Don’t wait until you finally start doing something for your goals. Just never do this again.
The next time you’re trying to postpone something, ask yourself why you’re doing this? Is the reason a good reason or is it just a bad excuse? In most cases, it’s an excuse. No need to put off.

Other reasons to act now and not later:

• You’ll achieve your goal faster.
• You are prouder of yourself.
• You learn how to tackle your problems right away.
• You don’t raise your hopes too high, you just do it!

3. Your Mind-Set

Specific goals a great and doing things immediately is as well, but what if nothing changes? This can be really demotivating. Hopefully, you dream big. But the only way to achieve our big goals is step by step. Unfortunately, we cannot make progress all the time. Sometimes we stagnate, sometimes we fall back. This happens. It’s important to not give up.

Here are some things to think about when it comes to your health. There are a lot of things to consider but these are by favorites:

• You live in your body. Your body enables you to walk, speak, see… Isn’t this already reason enough for you to work off your butt?
• You are your body. We always tend to moan about ourselves and how we look. But that’s you and you are the center of your life. And if the center isn’t healthy and fit, how can everything else in your life be?
• Become aware of the consequences. Actually, we know them but as long as they don’t interfere with our lives, we are blind to them. We think of them as a “some time or other” thing. The present is always more important to us than the future or the past. But what if you’re lying in hospital somewhere in the future. You will look back with regret.
• Do the things because you can and not because you have to. We live in the first world with lots of food and a minimum of movement due to cars, elevators and escalators. The jobs we usually do are not physical work anymore.
  So, we actually can exercise whenever we want. We can be selective when it comes to food. And if we have the privilege to choose, why wouldn’t we use it? Choose your health.

To sum up, New Year’s resolutions aren’t useful. They are just an excuse to put off things instead of getting them done now. Set your goals specifically but do it every day, every week and every month. There’s nothing wrong with having a vision for the New Year but to really get things done you need to do it step by step and work towards it every day.
Also work on your mind-set. It is your biggest resource and the point where everything rises from. Let it be your source of motivation and discipline to get what you want.
Always remember why you do it. And most importantly: Do it for yourself. You are the center of your life and this should be healthy.

I wish you a lovely NYE and a happy new year. Enjoy the turn of the year and the fantastic energy that come with it.
Thanks a lot to everyone who visited my little baby (my blog) this year. I appreciate that so much!
Much love, Lee-Anne ♥