Surely you have your New Year’s resolutions and you would like them to stay with you for a longer time. But if you feel that your motivation is gradually changing into discouragement and you start to forget about your plans and dreams, it’s time to act! How to stick to your New Year’s resolutions?
In the age of the Internet and portable laptops, writing by hand has become a relic. However, scientists claim that this way of jotting down your thoughts significantly speeds up the learning and remembering process! Professor Audrey van der Meer from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology has shown in her research that writing by hand increases activity in the sensorimotor parts of the brain. Write down your intentions for the New Year on a piece of paper or in a notebook. This will make them a little more real
Your plans will be easier to execute if you set a time frame for when you will complete them. Without a specific date to complete a task, you are less likely to succeed. You can then postpone intentions indefinitely until the next New Year’s Eve. However, the deadline for your ideas and goals must not only be measurable, but also achievable. Losing a lot of excess weight in two or three weeks is not only unhealthy, but also impossible. In the same way, it is worth spending more time on learning a foreign language than a month or two.
In order not to lose motivation and to implement the idea step by step, it is necessary to set micro-goals, which will make the pursuit of the goal easier and faster. Overcoming one obstacle after another can be discouraging at first. Overall, however, it is easier to complete small tasks than to tackle your main goal. Write down your achievements in a notebook, as this will help you keep your motivation levels high.
If your resolutions require you to make some sacrifices, try to implement small habits. Don’t make big changes right away. Take small steps to change individual habits so that your goals are not just one-time resolutions. In order to persevere in your resolutions, use the method of small steps, e.g. instead of implementing a strict diet, start cooking at home and look for healthy substitutes. Habits are harder to change if you don’t start with small steps. In order not to get discouraged quickly, it is worth taking care of a positive attitude to changes.
When planning and already having a schedule for change, it is also very important to visualize how you will look or feel when the goal is achieved. When pursuing goals and dreams, it works very well for the mind to think about how we will feel once we achieve it. This positively affects motivation and makes accomplishing tasks much easier.
Talking about your dreams and your desire to achieve them will make it harder for you to drop your resolutions and plans. The more people know that you want to change something in your life, the more self-denial you have to keep your word.
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