Stick to your New Year’s resolutions by not making any. At least, not in January.
The start of the New Year is often the perfect time to turn a new page in your life, which is likely why so many people make New Year’s resolutions. But, for the majority, making them stick is an act of war. In fact, only 8% of people who make these resolutions are successful at keeping them.
Business owners are no exception; you just have more to lose by not setting and achieving your goals.
Timing is everything. For many of you, there’s no issue with the idea of making resolutions, it’s just that the timing doesn’t fit well with the realities of life. And that means you are more likely to abandon them early on. The problem is this leaves you feeling defeated before you’ve even had a chance to get started. And, when it happens to you year after year, it becomes a success-zapping bad habit.
A New Way of Making Resolutions
Years ago, I experimented with a new way of making resolutions that I learned from one of my favourite productivity bloggers, Dave Seah. Dave created a process for himself that involved moving New Year’s resolutions to Groundhog Day.
This small, but highly practical, change opens up January to recover from the holidays, deal with any catch-up activities left over from year end, and gives you time to really think about the past year before setting the goals you want to achieve this year. Having a few weeks to let yourself to settle in and complete the previous year’s review makes all the difference! Especially since review is a critical part of making true progress on our goals.
Groundhog Day falls on the 2nd day of the 2nd month. So Dave extended the pattern for scheduling review dates to make it easier to remember. This means you’ll review your progress on the 3rd day of March (the third month), the 4th day of April (the fourth month), the 5th day of May (the fifth month) and so on until year end. I think you’ll find this makes the rhythm of the year so much more interesting than the typical month-end review.
Come January, you’ll have the whole month to complete your prior year review to help you get ready to kick your year into high gear. Dave has been doing this for many years now. He posts his new year goals each February and shares his month-by-month progress on the scheduled review dates on his blog.
So, if you are looking for new ways to improve on past results, both with your business and in setting and keeping your resolutions, give this method a try. Sometimes just taking a different approach is all you need to renew your enthusiasm for a repetitive task and boost your results.
More next time. Until then, remember to LOVE YOUR WORK, whatever it may be.
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