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workingEDGE January 2016 | 07 Feature Start Your NEW YEAR in FEBRUARY. do it year! So, you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to make some important changes in your personal and business life. Maybe you’ve vowed to get your finances in order, exercise more, develop a social media presence or embrace new technology. Of course making New Year’s resolutions is a positive thing. The start of a new year often makes us look back on the previous year and evaluate the positive and negative things we did or didn’t do, and possibly we’ve got a few regrets in there. The New Year gives us an opportunity to start afresh, and when we make our New Year’s resolutions we do so in the belief that this year is going to be different, THIS YEAR is going to be the year that we finally achieve that elusive work/life balance. When New Year’s Resolutions Fail Strangely, we often find ourselves making similar resolutions every year, because for some reason we never ended up making the previous year’s resolutions into a real life-changing habit. Why is this? There are many reasons why New Year’s resolutions don’t work out. Maybe they were too ambitious or not feasible within the logistics of your life. Perhaps you made too many or just made them because everyone else was doing it but none of you were really that committed. Don’t beat yourself up too much – you’re not alone in falling off the wagon! In fact, University of Scranton research found that only 8% of people achieve their New Year’s goals. The whole New Year’s resolution thing seems to be getting more and more popular every year, especially now in our social media culture. You’ve probably got a few friends who publicly declared their New Year’s resolutions on Facebook or Twitter, not to mention all the blogs that love to post on this topic. But have you ever stopped to think that maybe the problem with not getting New Year’s resolutions to stick is that, well, they’re made at New Year? Have you ever stopped to think that January 1st is actually a really terrible
stopped to think that January 1st is actually a really terrible
time to kick off a new habit?
kick of
f a new habit? Work Towards Your goals After The Holidays At New Years, You’re likely on holiday from work and so not living your normal day-to-day life and not experiencing the pressures and commitments that will return when you go back to work. Making new habits or goals stick when you’re actively in the midst of your ‘normal life’ will allow you to incorporate them into your life in a way that makes everything balance. Dr Maxwell Maltz observed and documented in the 1950s that actions often take 21 days to really stick as a habit, so disrupting your new change by introducing a new routine (or just getting back into routine), may be half the problem. For example, if one of your goals is to talk to more people, then once you’re back at work is the perfect time to start, as you’ll need to come up with tactics and solutions to make this feasible long-term. Do you want to turn your New Year's resolutions into lasting habits? Starting your resolutions in February instead of January could be the answer.
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