It's the time of year once again where millions of people around the world have set themselves targets known as New Year's resolutions, but have you ever wondered how many people are successful with their resolutions? The truth is quite shocking at just 8 percent! This means that 92 percent of all people who set goals for the year ahead fail and most of these failures come within the first TWO WEEKS!. This shows that the percentage of those who make it past Jan. 14 and go on to complete their goals is much higher, but why is this?
I hate to bombard my readers with numbers, but statistics don't lie, and it is the only way of really getting to grips with the real problems. One of the main problems with New Year's resolutions is that many people aren't confident when they make them. Let's be honest and say that they have already failed at that point because confidence is everything. If you don't believe in yourself, you therefore aren't thinking positively about what you can achieve. Many studies have now proven that a positive attitude and even positive "self-talk" can help to enhance your performance and will assist you more than you realize.
You may be reading this thinking, "This all sounds great but what does it mean? How do I implement this 'self-talk' into my life?" And the answer is simple. Firstly, you have to come to terms with how often you put yourself down. We have a natural ability to feed our brain negative thoughts so start by noting down on a piece of paper every time you get a negative thought pop into your head. If you don't have time to write it down just realize that it is happening in the moment and store it away for later. When you have the time later on, you can then look back and think about all the negative thoughts you had throughout the day. These thoughts can be anything from "I can't do it" to "there's no point in trying; I know I will give up eventually." You will be shocked to see how many times we go through these thoughts in a single day. A good way to start the process of positive thinking is to try and take yourself out of the situation; maybe pretend that it is your friend talking and not you. If that was the case, what advice would you give them? This allows us to disconnect from our emotions and make a better informed decision.
Another positive step to take is to physically remove negative thoughts and replace them with positive ones. If you have written down some of the negativity that is floating around during the course of the day, you may find it beneficial to physically remove these by throwing the paper in the bin or maybe even burning it. By doing this, you can see how easy it is to remove negative thoughts from your life; you are showing yourself that you don't need them and that they are easily dealt with. Now these are gone, write down whatever it is that inspires you. If you are attempting to lose weight, put up an old picture that you like or how you want to look. Write down some inspirational quotes, your favorite film lines or music lyrics; find whatever it is that gives you motivation and dot them around your house so you will see them on a regular basis. Maybe even write down what you are grateful for; maybe it is your partner, job, and friends and then follow this up with your dreams and aspirations; this could be to marry your partner, to get a promotion at work or maybe even a change of career. We have around 50,000 thoughts every single day so to write this down can help to give guidance as it is easy to lose our way in a busy life.
Of course, negative thoughts are only natural and you will still get them but you need to learn how to deal with them in the right way as this is where most people go wrong. You have to take a subjective approach and learn to use the negatives for growth. For example, if you are attempting to give up cigarettes and happen to smoke one on a Wednesday, instead of caving in and smoking again on the Thursday and Friday, think of ways to prevent this. You can say, "Okay, so I had a little step back but what was it that made me have that cigarette? Was it because it was the middle of the week? If so, maybe I can find an activity or something to do that will take my mind off of cigarettes on that day?" Equally, it may be because your stress levels were high on that day so what else can you do to relieve stress that doesn't involve smoking/eating unhealthily? Too many people give up after one little stumble and if you have already faltered with your New Year's resolution, it is up to you to be different and learn from your mistakes rather than letting them destroy you.
Many of the examples were related to giving up smoking and losing weight but this can be transferred to whatever your goals are. Of course, this doesn't just apply to New Year's resolutions; this should be applied all year round. If you want to go out there and achieve something, make it happen right now, you don't have to wait for the new year to change your life.
Good luck, you know you can do it!