Everyone knows and understands that to take up any kind of a resolution we don’t need a ‘New year’! The day we decide we want to accomplish an specific objective, is the day we need to begin. However, the reason so many of us resolve to achieve greater things in the new year is the hope it kindles on fresh starts, new beginnings! If that hope can propel us to greater motivations, why not? But the flip side is, when goals are not met once too often, our sub-conscious no longer takes us seriously! That little voice in our head whispers even before we make a commitment ‘You won’t stick to this!’ And it is very difficult to keep ourselves motivated when the enemy is from within! So how do we quite that voice and still make new year resolutions that motivate us to achieve?

Firstly, we need to give ourselves some ‘small victories’ to increase the volume of the voice in our head for the ‘I can’ rather than the ‘you cannot’. The simplest and easiest way to achieve that is to set every day small goals – like 

• I will walk a minimum of 5000 steps today 
• I will climb at least ten floors today
• I will avoid fried food today
• I will have salad for lunch

A single, simple, achievable objective for each day of January 2015 to reprogram our subconscious mind that hope has a chance to survive.

The first step is so crucial that if it is done EVERY DAY, the rest of the year will gently flow almost effortlessly. But even a single day of compromise will weaken the voice of ‘I can’ in our minds.

Once the pattern of simple achievable goals has been established, it will be time to increase the expectation from oneself by introducing a ‘harder’ goals that last longer in duration, like:

• I will exercise every day of this week
• I will avoid all fats this week
• I will consciously activate my TA during the day
• I will remember to sit straight the whole day

With every passing month, you should be able to increase your expectation from yourself in terms of the intensity and duration of the activity. A simple 5% increase every month will still make you 60% more efficient by end of 2015. Why miss out on that?

Every new beginning is a promise for improved living. That is why we are so keen to celebrate new years, birthdays and so many more. With every new beginning we gift ourselves the opportunity to strengthen our hopes by living up to our own commitments or waste that opportunity by programming our subconscious mind not to believe in ourselves. The former is life affirmative while the latter is life negative. So even if they are very negligible accomplishments, it is better to increase your self belief by reviving hope in new beginning by way of achieving realistic goals than to miss the opportunity to feel like a winner. 

It is your choice. What is it going to be for 2015?

Written by Gita Krishna Raj  |  Published in Food & Health in January 2015