What is the big deal about New Year’s Resolutions?
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.“Failure is not in not reaching your goal, but in having no goal to reach.” ~ Benjamin Mays.
The New Year is here and many people will be making resolutions for the year ahead. And many others have indicated that their only resolution is not to make any resolutions. What’s the big deal about making resolutions anyway? Does it really serve any purpose? After all, most people don’t keep their resolutions. Few people manage to maintain them past the first month. So why make a resolution at all?
The importance of a New Year’s resolution
The entire process of making a resolution serves a very important purpose even if you do not keep the resolution (which is not an encouragement to abandon your resolutions 
). A resolution is a goal, an objective – it is something you decide to do continuously for the next year. In order to decide on this resolution, you must consider your life plan. You must consider where you want to be and how you plan to get there. You must consider your life goals. And here lies the true importance of New Year’s resolutions. It is an opportunity to evaluate your life and see if you are where you want to be.
New Year’s as an opportunity to decide on your life goals
It is an opportunity to consider what is important to you and if you are living your life in accordance with your goals and desires. Are you living the life you want to be living? And if not, do you know what you need to do to get to that life? Are you taking those steps? Have you resolved to take those steps?
New Year’s as an opportunity to tweak your life goals
New Year resolutions also serve the purpose of tweaking your life plans. Your desires will change as you change. And your goals should change to reflect your new desires. Perhaps last year you wanted to become a body builder and your goal last year was to lose the extra weight and join a gym for weight training. Over the course of the year you might have decided that you want to become a different kind of athlete which might require you to tweak your plan towards a different kind of training – perhaps long distance running.
Constantly renewing your resolutions gives you the opportunity to revise your goals. New Year’s acts as an impetus – a global annual reminder to review and evaluate your life and your goals.
New Year’s resolution to guide your daily activity
A New Year’s resolution helps you determine how you spend your time and what activities to partake in on a daily basis. Your resolutions guide your daily activities.
A New Year’s resolution works as a yardstick against which you can measure your daily activity and progress, to see if you are on the right track. Or at least it should.
If your resolution is to open your own business but you still find yourself focusing 12 hours of your day (including your commute) on working for someone else, then you need to reevaluate. Do you have a plan for opening your business? What actions should you be taking right now towards achieving that goal? Do you need to take some business courses? Do you need to apprentice or volunteer your services in order to get experience? Do you need to join an association of businessmen in that field from whom you can learn? Do you need to organize your finances or financiers?
At the very least you should be spending your mental energy brainstorming and focusing on your goal. Put your subconscious to work on finding opportunities to help you achieve your goal. Keep your New Year’s resolution in mind as often as possible.
New Year’s resolution as a tool to change your life
70% of people in the Western World make New Year’s resolutions but less than 10% keep them. Will you be one of that 10%? Making a resolution is useful in and of itself. However, the most use a resolution can offer you is if you keep it.
What is the difference between people who succeed at keeping their resolutions and those who don’t? Are they richer? Or smarter? Or have better friends? Or have more resources? No. The difference is willpower, motivation, desire and determination. In others words, the only thing stopping you from keeping your New Year’s resolution is you.
This means that the main item you need to keep your resolution is already within you. You have the power to keep this resolution and change your life to get the life you want to be living. You are the only person who can determine to succeed at this. You are the one who must consistently do what needs to be done every day. Success is well within your reach.
For tips to help keep you focused and help you succeed at your New Year’s Resolution see the Achieving Your Goals articles.
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt.
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