January 11, 2017

Effective New Year’s Resolutions in 5 minutes

Every year people make New Year’s resolutions they quit after 2 weeks… It is too bad to waste such a rare opportunity of setting new goals to improve yourself.

I like having objectives and achieving things. So, I decided to take this New Year’s traditions more seriously. I tried to find out how to improve myself during the following year. How to learn new things and live a better life.

And more importantly, I wanted to understand why my past resolutions were so weak and ineffective. I came to realize that most of the time they were not realistic, not serious, or unclear. This time, I decided to avoid these three major biases that I could think of.

This is the process I recommend.

1) Make a self-review of the past year

People are usually looking forward without even looking back at what they achieved this year. That is such a waste. Everyone should use the end of the year to review the good and bad points of this year. That is something people almost never do! Instead of New Year’s resolutions, you should first take a time to reflect on the past year. What did you achieve? Did you get good habits? Bad habits? What are the new things you learned? What did you enjoy doing? Did you follow your resolutions for the previous year?

2) Find the right targets

That might help you find objectives. Things you want to improve. You should set goals according to what you found in step 1. Be realistic. Do not lie to yourself. And try to focus on very few points.

3) Make the first step

Once you have defined your goals, you have to make use of all your current motivation to make the first step. Start right now! (Otherwise, you know you’ll fail). And the thing is, the first step is the most difficult one. But once you started, you are more likely to continue. Even a very small first step is fine.