Thursday 7 February 2013

New Year Resolutions ...



Most people make them.

A lot of people break them.

Some think they are silly.

A New Year. A new start. A fresh approach. A change for the better.

Why do we choose to make massive life changes at the beginning of the year? Surely we’d be more committed to achieve our goals if we made more realistic ones when they were warranted rather than under the pressure of a new year.

In ancient times, the New Year was the time when people recommitted themselves to their Gods. The 1st day of the first month of the New Year seems auspicious, so why not start afresh on this day.

But the pressure! Don’t you find there’s pressure to make NY resolutions? Then the pressure to keep them!

New Year Resolutions are universal and are all based on improvement.

Improve physical well-being: eat healthy food, lose weight, exercise more, eat betterdrink less alcohol, quit smoking etc.
Improve mental well-being; think positive, laugh more often, enjoy life
Improve finances: get out of debt save money, make small investments
Improve career: perform better at current job, get a better job, secure a promotion or pay increase, establish own business.
Improve education: improve grades, get a better education, learn something new (such as a language or music), study often, read more books, improve talents.
Improve self: become more organized, reduce stress, manage time, be more independent, perhaps watch less television, play fewer sitting-down video games.
Take a trip.
Volunteer to help others, practice life skills, use civic virtue, give to charity, volunteer to work part time in a charity organization (NGO).
Get along better with people, improve social skills, enhance social intelligence.
Make new friends.
Spend quality time with family members.
Settle down, get engaged/get married, have kids.
Pray more, be closer to God, be more spiritual.

It’s a bit like a business plan – you know the goal, the question is how best to achieve it.

KISS and SMART princples should apply.
K eep
I t
S imple
S tupid

And

S pecific
M easurable
A chieveable
R ealistic
T imeframes

For some reason these acronyms have stuck with me since News Ltd days in Sydney. I subconsciously apply them to all sorts of things and it works (depending on my passion at the time)

So instead of simply start excersing one should commit to ‘within the first month of the new year I will walk 5 km/miles 3 times a week building up to double that within 3 months’ and so on.

Improve finances could start with (yet another) visit to a financial advisor (after all the one you might have seen the year before didn’t know what they were talking about, hence the need to do it again), and commit this time to doing as they suggest.

Improve self, if we did that we might not need New Year resolutions, after all the common denominator in all this is ‘you’.

For all of the above reasons, a lot of people choose NOT to make New Year resolutions, me being one of them.

I truly believe any time of the year is the right time of the year to commit to a positive change, but it has to be the right time for YOU. Circumstances are constantly changing and affecting the way we think, behave and feel. So why not make adjustments, rather than changes as and when needed.

This is the right time for us.

We need to get fitter, loose some weight and get moving.

We’ve hired a treadmill and will be using it daily.

I have a Moonwalk marathon in May and DH is leading a sedentary lifestyle that isn’t healthy.

So, with no huge goals to achieve, no over the top promises to one’s self, or the world, we’re starting with one step at a time as of Monday.


Do you make NY resolutions?

What were they for 2013? And how did they differ from 2012?

How are you going with them so far?

With friendship
X



No comments:

Post a Comment