New Year… New Goals:

How to make your New Years Resolutions stick in 2020

With the new DECADE of 2020 right around the corner – so many of us are looking at the New Year as a way to motivate ourselves to finally commit to doing the things we’ve been wanting to do for awhile now…. but just haven’t had the drive to actually… really… stick to those goals.

Whether it be a fitness goal, a healthy eating goal, a business goal, a personal goal… no matter what the goal, we often see the start of a new year as a way to finally get ourselves to JUST DO THE DAMN THING. But what happens so much of the time is that we get all fired up on January 1 and we commit for a few days, maybe a few weeks… and then the craziness of life gets in the way again and we fall of track… again… SO whats the secret to really committing to a goal??

Well… let’s unpack the topic of motivation over here for a few minutes shall we…? If you look up the true definition of Motivation you will find that…

“Motivation is “the reason or reasons one has for acting or behaving in a particular way. ” or “the general desire or willingness of someone to do something.”

I don’t know about you all, but I think the key words here are REASON(S), DESIRE and WILLINGNESS. In order to be motivated to reach our goals, we need real reasons to work for them and a true desire and willingness to do the hard things to get there.

So where do we start? Finding our reason might sound simple, but to get down to the real, true motivating factor – or what I like to call the real MOFO, we have to ask ourselves a series of questions:

To do this, I’d love for you to first state your goal (better yet, write it down) and then answer the following quetsions:

**there is a downloadable template at the bottom of the post to follow along with if you want to start writing 🙂

Why is working on (or reaching) this goal important to me?

• Follow your answer up with 3 more why is this important to me? questions.
  • For example: I want to lose 15 lbs. Why is this important? I want to feel more energetic. Why is this (feeling more energetic) important? I want to be able to keep up with my kids. Why is being able to keep up with my kids important? Because they are only young once and I want to be able to play with them while they still want to play with me 😉 etc etc.
• Through this exercise you want to get to the real underlying reasons for your goals. Your real MOFO.

Once you’ve found your true REASON(S) for your goal(s) now we can get to the fun part of how to make it happen… our DESIRE & WILLINGNESS.

Again, I want you to write down your answers to the following questions and when you’re done I want you to hang that paper somewhere that you can see and reflect on EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. This step is huge in helping your brain commit to the habits needed to make your goal a success… trust me.

1. What in my life would change if I could stick to or accomplish this goal? What would be better about my life? And then ask yourself again Why is this important to me?
2. If I don’t make this change what will my life look like in 6 months from now? Does this picture of my life in 6 months bring me happiness or stress?
3. If I do make this change (or reach this goal) what will my life look like in 6 months from now? Does this picture bring me happiness or stress?
4. What has gotten in the way of my being able to reach this goal in the past? How can I troubleshoot for this in the future?
5. Who do I need to help support me and help me stay accountable to this goal?
6. What can I do if I fall off track? This little woop template I find very helpful for planning for obstacles 😉

By working through these questions we can really dig deep into why we want to change. They really force us to look at what our life will look like if we committ to our goal and what our life will look like if we stay the same. After all…

Sometimes just envisioning those two scenarios are enough to kick us into gear, but so often we overlook them.

The other thing thats important in sticking to our goals is figuring out how much needs to change in our life to reach our goal(s). Sometimes we want EVERYTHING to change and we want it to change NOW. Unfortunately, our primal brain likes routine and gets very overwhelmed when we ask it to change too much too soon… before you know it, our brain shuts down and we’re back to square 1 with no motivation to continue working on anything.

SO if your goal is a big one, I highly recommend working through a goal ladder and just focusing on one habit or behavior that needs to change at a time. Give yourself a week, or even a month, to focus on each mini goal in your ladder. The way I see it is, if you’re working towards your goal, even if very slowly, you’re STILL DOING IT and you should be proud of yourself. Change is hard you guys. BUT so worth it, especially when it comes to your health and happiness.

I like both of these templates for breaking bigger goals into smaller and more manageable goals/changes.

Like I’ve said, write it all down you guys. Write it down and put it somewhere you can see OFTEN throughout your day. The more you see it, read it, say it out loud, the more your brain recognizes it as something it WANTS. Our brains are funny… They freak out about anything new or different and they need a little coaxing when it comes to changing things up… so help it out a little by repeating and rehearsing your big MOFOs (motivating factors) and the steps you need to make the changes. The other big help is telling a friend/spouse/partner/colleague about your goal(s). You are way more likely to stick to your plan if you do these two things:

So to help you make 2020 your best year yet, feel free to download and print out the goal setting worksheet below that has ALL the questions and the goal ladder template included. Fill it out and tape it to your fridge/bathroom mirror/ car dashboard and let 2020 be YOUR YEAR TO SHINE.

And if you find that you need a little help along the way, I’m opening up my Life & Health coaching business in early spring – I’d love to help you get to those goals. More details to come!!

You’ve got this.

XOXO