Enjoy a More Productive New Year with Micro Resolutions

New Year with Micro Resolutions

Everyone has a New Year’s resolutions and unfortunately most of them aren’t completed. Some want to lose weight, go to the gym more often, exercise more or stop smoking. It’s not that you don’t have what it takes to complete something, far from it. Sometimes it is just easier and less stressful to start smaller and in bite-sized steps.

How many times have you made that almighty resolution only to find that a few months into the new year you are not only not doing anything towards accomplishing it, but you realistically forgot what it was. You are not the only one that has this problem. Not only that, beating yourself up about it won’t force the goal to happen any easier either. I know you have heard this, but it bears repeating. A habit doesn’t happen overnight nor can you change one in the same time frame.

What are micro resolutions?

Well they are simply put, smaller easy to do things that only take about 5 minutes or so to complete. You can make smaller sized resolutions and a time frame that you want to do them for and actually get more accomplished over the year. These micro steps are something very personal to you, just like your New Year’s resolution, making it easy to stick to.

Why do micro resolutions work over regular resolutions?

· Most big resolutions fail because it takes too much to accomplish. Too much willpower and making a large change is not easily stuck to. Smaller more attainable resolutions can be done daily and in a very short amount of time, making them more habit forming faster.

· If you try and make your resolution to drastic, you are setting yourself up for failure even if it’s a micro resolution. Setting small and very specific personable goals will only set you up to succeed. Again keeping the time to get them accomplished on a daily basis and specific end date in mind makes them almost impossible to fail.

Ok I want to try this, what now?

Ok first things first. You need to actually sit down and figure out what you want to change. If it turns out to be a large change, break it down into smaller steps and make those your starting point. You need to actually almost micro manage that large goal into baby goals, making it easier and less difficult to accomplish.

Example: If your resolution is to lose weight. First of all be more specific. Large goals like that will just set you up to fail. For instance a smaller goal can be to go for a brisk walk every day either outside (if the weather is good) or on a treadmill for a short amount of time. Sometimes the act of just moving around you own home can be all it takes to get a small change to happen. Set a date to end that small bite sized portion to be looked into and rechecked.

If say after a month of that small goal you find that you’ve been able to stick with it, then you have made a wonderful stride towards your end goal and if you want to continue it fantastic. If you find that it just didn’t work for you, it didn’t give you the outcome you wanted or anything else negative then change it to some other small goal and try again. Do not allow yourself to feel bad that something didn’t work. It’s all about creating a new habit or changing a bad one and it will take some time to make that adjustment.

Make sure to write down daily what’s going on within you. How things are going on a daily basis will make looking back easier and more productive for you in the long run. Set a specific goal that you will add something new that advances you every month and allow a month at least to either decide to continue or change to a new micro resolution. By the end of the year you’ll be amazed at how far you’ve come and how much less you have to go. Make sure that the goals you set for yourself are about getting something done, making some sort of forward progress and not about not doing something.

Well now you know what it is, make this work for you

Just because you’ve read about what it is, and why it works won’t make it happen for you unless you actually take action. Sit down and write out what you want to change, why you want to change it and even what things will look like or what impact will it have when it does change. If you need to buy little note pads and write words of encouragement and put them all over your house so you can see them. Pick a positive affirmation to say over and over to yourself over the course of your day, anything that will make things easier for you and achieving these small micro resolutions. Sometimes all it takes is just one small little shift and it creates a large chain of events that make a huge change in your life.

Remember that habits aren’t formed in a day and change won’t happen overnight, but if you make small daily adjustments you can and will see major change at the end of a year. Even just the simple act of small monthly rewards to yourself can make all the difference when you look back at the end of the year at how far you’ve come. Be your own cheer leader and you will find the rewards for all that you do are so much greater than staying in the same stuck situation. You have so much more power to invoke change in your life than you give yourself credit for. Just because that major shift you wanted last year didn’t pan out, doesn’t mean you can make smaller easier to manage changes each month this year and get to the same spot that you wanted to be.