Are New Year Resolutions a waste of time?

2017 is fast approaching and soon, millions of people will be making, and breaking, their New Year’s Resolutions.  Believe it or not, research shows that 45% of people regularly make New Year Resolutions, staggeringly; only 8% of people achieve their goals.  That said, 46% of people are able to get beyond 6 months.  Another fascinating statistic is that people in their 20’s are nearly 3 times successful at achieving their goals than people in their 50’s.

Back to the question; are New Year Resolutions a waste of time?  Not at all, but we definitely need to give them serious thought before we make them.  Generally, people only think about their New Year Resolutions on New Year’s Eve; they are made on the spur of the moment and without much thought.   It is easy to see why New Year Resolutions have been compared to having babies – making them is fun, maintaining them is difficult.

How can I achieve my New Year Goals?

Make time to think about what you would like to improve or change in your life.  Think about this long before New Year’s Eve.  Ordinarily, I would say that setting goals on New Year’s Eve is setting yourself up to fail.  You are usually excited about the prospects of a New Year, your mood is high and right now, sticking to those goals seems easy.  They probably are easy, as long as you put some plans in place.

When the going gets tough, having a huge goal can seem like too much of a burden; so break it down into manageable chunks.  If, for example, your goals is to lose 30lbs next year, you can break this down to 2.5lbs per month.  You can go further and break it down to weekly goals and plan your meals per day.

Now, if you have a bad week or bad day, it’s not such a big deal – look how many days there are in the year.

Failure or Success – it’s up to you!

Planning and preparation are key to success.  Have you heard of the 4P’s? Poor Planning Produces Poor Results! Planning is key to achieving any goal.  A good way to do this, as in the weight loss goal already mentioned, is to write your goal on a piece of paper and then work backwards.  Creating a load of smaller goals, challenges and single actions that will get you to your goal.

Only you can do this and you can only do it by taking some time out to yourself and really thinking about what you want.  It’s not rocket science but you need to allow yourself the space to think, set goals and plan them out!

Going the extra mile…

As an organisation that has been involved in experiential learning for over 20 years we understand and endorse experiential learning and the using activities as metaphors.  With that in mind, we are running a few events in January that can help people set goals, focus on them and realise that they can do whatever they wish should they make the decision to do it.

Men’s Sweat Lodge
The 108 Firewalk
Sahara Retreat
The Adventure of Silence

Firewalking is such a strong metaphor for realising that just because something appears impossible it doesn’t mean it actually is impossible.  When people walk across the Firebed they realise that they can do things that they once thought impossible.  This gives people confidence and heart – sure what else do you need?

Take time, think and set your goals