Home

About Us

Contact Us

Get a Quote

Our Products

Services

Testimonials

Learning Center

In a hurry? Use these quick links to our main services:

• Personal
• Business
• Benefits
• Employer Protection
• Bonds

At Inova Fairfax Hospital for Children, remarkable things happen every day. Learn how in this short video. (Requires QuickTime.)

 

3 Tips for Making New Year's Resolutions Work

From Jim Ball, December 18, 2006

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS do not work for many people, but they can.

"I set them every year and break them every year," a man says. "Why go through the exercise?"

It does not have to be that way. Many people who adopt resolutions each New Year do achieve the intended results.

If you would like to make your resolutions for the New Year come true, here are three strategies for success.

1. Think GOALS, Not Resolutions

The first obstacle people face is they think of their resolutions as resolutions. Their resolutions are expressions of their intentions or declarations of what they would like to see happen. Their resolutions are a form of wishful thinking.

If you want to see your New Year's resolutions come true, then forget about resolutions. Instead, think goals. Take time to think through what you really want, transform your wants into specific goals, and make a firm commitment to pursue and achieve your goals no matter what.

2. Know What You Want, EXACTLY

A second obstacle people face is their New Year's resolutions are fuzzy, vague, and incomplete. They want to get in shape, but they have not taken time to think through what getting in shape means, what it requires, and what they have to do to achieve it.

If you want to see your New Year's resolutions come true, then take time to specify what you want exactly. Get some quiet time to design and create your goals. Think in detail. Consider the alternatives for each goal. Then make choices and establish the characteristics that will make your goals your goals. What do you want? What does it look like? When do you want to achieve it? Spell out the answers to these and other questions in a goal statement that is so laser clear and complete there can be no mistake whatsoever about the exact goals you will achieve.

3. VISUALIZE Success

A third obstacle people face is they do not have a clear and visual picture in their mind's eye of the targets they are trying to hit, or if they do have clear mental pictures of their targets, they get distracted. People may have the greatest intentions and desires, but they cannot and will not hit what their minds do not see and stay focused upon.

If you want to see your New Year's resolutions come true, then take time to create vivid images of yourself and your achieved goals and visualize those images often. Imagine yourself in full living color with your goals achieved. Really see yourself with your goals in hand. Allow yourself to feel how you will feel. Imagine how you will act and what you will do. Visualize yourself and your achieved goals each morning upon rising, each mid day, each night before you retire, and several additional times throughout the day.

Summary

There you have it, three simple strategies for achieving your New Year's resolutions.

1. Think goals, not resolutions. Transform your intended resolutions into firm commitments to achieve specific goals.
2. Know what you want exactly. Write out a detailed, complete, and laser clear statement of your goals.
3. Visualize success. Create mental pictures of yourself achieving your goals and visualize those images each morning, noon, and night and several additional times throughout each day.

Additional Success Tips

• Narrow your focus to a small number of major goals at any one time. Three goals are good, two goals are better, and one goal is best. The power of having and pursuing only one goal is amazing.
• Do whatever is required to achieve your goals. Once you set a goal and commit to achieving it, go all out. Be relentless. Do not be easy on yourself. Do not allow yourself excuses. Do not allow people or other obstacles to deter you, hold you back, or get in your way.
• Take action every single day to work toward your goals. Do something each day, even if it is a small step. Keep up the momentum. Never let a day go by where you did not make some progress.
• Convert your actions into habits. Identify the key actions that will result in your success and transform those actions into repeatable daily habits and rituals. Be disciplined. Do whatever you must do to establish and maintain these habits. If you decide you need to exercise an hour a day to get in shape and stay in shape, do whatever you must do to establish and maintain this habit as a daily ritual for life.

I hope the tips above help you, your friends, and colleagues have a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2007! Best wishes for great joy this holiday season.

Sincerely,

Jim Ball
The Goals Institute

email: info@goalsinstitute.com
phone: 703-264-2000
web: www.goalpower.com