5 Simple Strategies to stick to your New Year’s Resolutions

1. Decide what your goal is and commit to success:
Working out what you really want when you are surrounded by other people’s ideas can be confusing. Do you really want what you have or are you conditioned to want it?
If you are unclear want you want, make a list of things that you don’t want and do the opposite. This will give you a starting point. What is it that you no longer want to tolerate? What is it that you will now stand for?
What have you given up that really matters to you? Have you compromised on things that are important to you like no time with family, no social or love life, where you are living, or how much you earn? Can you choose just one thing to focus on that is important and worth the effort?

2. Write down as many reasons as you can why you want to succeed:
To create how you want your life there has to be a deep reason for change. The first step to having any goal accomplishment is desire. It is only then that when the desire becomes so intense that you do something about it.
Write down as many compelling reasons why this goal is important to you and then ask the following questions. A. Is this an important goal? B. If I continue with my current lifestyle will I achieve my goal? C. How will I feel when I achieve this goal? Use your imagination to see yourself reaching your goal.
Make a stand for something or fall for anything.

3. Live your goal as if you've already achieved it; imagine yourself succeeding:
The journey is the reward. It is who you become by reaching your goals rather than actually reaching your destination. Only by feeling the benefits of doing what you say you will do, can transform you from being a couch potato who talks about taking action, into someone who prizes really living life by achieving what they set out to do.
If your resolution is to be happy...choose to be happy. Remember that the right time may never come along. Ask someone you trust when you are being too serious.
Life is a circus. You can be the ring master or you can be the beast. Which one are you? It is never too late to have all of the things you want in your life.

4. Make a daily plan:
Life is not a journey for nothing. You would never get on a plane if the pilot did not know where he was going – would you? You have probably heard the saying “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” Basically if you do not plan your life then someone else will and you will live someone else’s dreams.
Even if you did no more than just write down the direction you would like your life to take, you would still benefit greatly from the enhanced mental focus. Your mind will be consistently pulling you in the direction of your written goals.
Every day take at least 10 minutes to sit down to organize and plan your life. Look at all the areas that are important to you like Family, health, professional, social, financial, mental, and spiritual development. Everyday write at least one thing down in each area. You will begin to see your own individual needs, your desires, your unique journey and what you really want your life to look like.

5. Devise coping strategies, and, most importantly never give up.
There are external and internal barriers which will prevent you from making the changes necessary. These are powerful forces which will either constrain you or stop you from achieving your goals.
External Barriers are things we may not be able to change, like the weather, kid’s school and sporting commitments, family obligations, the hours we work, bottleneck traffic at freeway construction, budget etc.
There are environmental factors also. If you want to stop smoking yet you are consistently around smokers.
If you want to take up a running program yet you work during daylight hours there is a safety aspect.
Internal Barriers are beliefs that drive our current behaviour. Emotional barriers can be “I will always be fat, I don’t deserve it, I am naturally a lazy person, I can’t get myself motivated,” or “I feel overwhelmed, I don’t have time, it is too difficult, I don’t have the right information, I always get interrupted “etc.
What about the times you wake up in the morning and think about going for a walk? Instead you lie in bed and toss and turn just ‘thinking about it’. Imagine how fit you would be if instead of just thinking about it, you actually got up and went for a walk?
The bottom line is that there is an 80/20 rule when it comes to getting what you want. If you do not have what you want in your life, it is because of either of these 2 barriers.
This may be hard to accept but what constrains or stops you are the 80 percent barriers within you. The other 20 percent is outside of you.
Expose the beliefs that do not empower you and replace them with the ones that do.