It’s February 21, almost 2 full months into the New Year. How are you doing on those New Year’s Resolutions?
According to Psychologist Jeremy Dean, author of upcoming book Making Habits, Breaking Habits, 60% of resolvers admitted they’d failed to make a change last for six months. Habits are hard to break and even harder to permanently change. So if you haven’t quite kept up with what you said you were going to do on January 1, 2013, now is the time to take stock in what you want the rest of your year to look like.
Purhaps it’s time to look at this idea of resolutions in a new perspective. Try thinking of creating your best life. What does your best life look like? Write down the answer to that question and keep it in a place where you will look at it every day.
Start to replace bad habits with good habits, i.e., if you are trying to move away from sugary foods, replace that food with something healthy, like fruit or some sugar free treat. Don’t just take something away. Make sure you replace it with what will help you create your best life.
Change your environment or your daily routines. Create something new in your life, i.e., get off the couch and read, exercise, or talk with your family in the evening instead of sitting in front of the TV all night, every night.
And finally, prepare distractions. Willpower alone may not be enough. Prepare distractions for those times when you are tempted, i.e., if you are trying to stop drinking in the evening after work, decide, when the thought comes up to make that drink, take a walk, listen to music, dance or call a friend.
It’s ok if you haven’t kept your resolution up until now. The great news is that you can start right now and you get the chance to start all over every single day of your life. Start today to create what you want in your life and to live your best life!!