Avoiding failure ... 10 tips before you set your new year goals

Zahraa Magdy

We are approaching the anniversary of recording the goals of the new year in the colorful memo that we buy each year, and then we forget those goals and the memo, which confirms that we are not among those hardworking organizing their lives.

To avoid this repetitive incident, there are ten tips that might make us look at it more realistically.

1- Reward yourself
Research published in the Journal of the American Psychological Association and Social Personality suggested that the immediate rewards accompany our practice of those activities required for long goals constantly, such as rewarding yourself with a healthy meal from a new restaurant, within your plan to reduce your weight, rather than preparing a repeat meal at home.

The advice was accompanied by the results of a frustrating study conducted in 2016, and I found that 80% of those who score their goals each year will fail by the second week of February, with people appreciating and loving to note the results of their endeavors, late rewards become heavy, according to Business Insider.

2- Find who is sharing your goal
Our problem with health-related goals lies in the internal battle between what we want to do and what we must do. According to a study published in the journal Nature and Science, those who exercise and eat healthy food only 20% of those who seek to improve their health.

Here we realize the importance of participating in heavy goals by looking for someone to share our goals with and remind us of, so try to include your new environment with people who share and motivate you to perform new behaviors daily, with whom the desired behavior becomes endearing behavior.

3- I am not obliged to change
Coach Irene Falconer mentioned in her book, "How do you succeed?" There is one word that impedes many of us from achieving the goals of the new year, and it is "should", as that word is often associated with guilt, shame and the absence of decision. To overcome the impact of a word like "we should" we must know that all that we are planning is a possibility and not a reality that should happen, and that trying to expel the tension accompanying making decisions and enjoying - if not fulfilling - is there next year.

4- Don't wait until the first night of the new year
Before making decisions for the new year, think more deeply, and imagine that you are in December of next year, and ask yourself: What is the real change that you are happy to achieve, as this question prompts you to think specifically. And if you want to change yourself, start the day, and do not wait for the first night in the New Year.

Many of us treat it as if there is something magical on December 31, but what is truly magical is the ability of our minds to create new images of ourselves, so we see that our goals are actually inappropriate.

5- Choose your decisions
Choose the decisions you would like to make in your new year, as psychiatrist Kelly McGonigal says in her book "Instinct of Will" that most people set goals for their lives while they are standing on the other side of them, so they choose goals they have heard about from others, and they think it is beneficial to them, then they try They imposed it on themselves, and they hope that their endeavors will lead a healthy and happy life. To avoid this trap, we must think about the changes that will make us happier in our lives.

6- Choose general goals
Choose a general feature for the new year, and in this way even if you do not achieve your goal, you will stick to the feature of the year, so we can take "stress reduction" as an essential feature of the year, and among the goals we may want here to adhere to ten minutes of meditation daily, even if we fail to achieve the goal, we should not We give up the "feature year".

Choosing a common subject will motivate your mind to search for additional opportunities to achieve your goal, while walking behind different goals will limit opportunities to individual behaviors, which makes us feel frustrated once we fail.

7- Two minutes to achieve your goal
There is a theory about which James Clare wrote in his book "Atomic Habits", which is the two-minute rule, and that rule states that we grant every new behavior that we hope will turn into a habit of only two minutes to implement every day. So if you want to read a book every month, then you will read a page daily. If you want to exercise, go to the gym daily and do simple exercises. Here, you may not feel the benefit of what you do in a few weeks, but the most important thing in gaining habit is mastering the art of habits.

8- Humans are weak
We know that at the end of every year that we are not achieving new, which means that preparing your surrounding environment is the best help for acquiring new habits. People who show the greatest degree of self-control do not have superpowers, they are only moving away from temptations. For example, you will not be able to stick to a healthy diet while you keep ice cream packages in the refrigerator, and you will still meet your friends in a fried chicken restaurant. Or you are trying to save money and the purchase apps are still on your phone.

9- Expect failure
Although we begin with the most sincere intentions, our failure in our new plan is on the table, so avoiding and overcoming failure at some point is part of our initial plan, which is called the return plan.

Here we can write down the obstacles that we expect and how we will overcome them, for example, if you are trying to stop eating fats in your food to maintain cholesterol in your blood, then you should think about your next visit to your mother’s house, and face delicious and unhealthy food, and there you will have room to Time to think about solutions to problems before you encounter them.

10- Celebrate each step
Celebration is not only about eating cakes and ice cream and going out to buy new clothes, but we can party every day without wasting health and money.

Celebration is one of the most important feelings that motivate people to take more positive behaviors, and it also sends signals to the mind telling them that this behavior is beneficial and happy for us, and we must search for more opportunities to engage in, as well as that the celebration can change reality and even your negative memories towards an old experience.