Forbes magazine brings us an article about how we can quadruple our chances of success with our New Year's resolutions. It's "behavioral economics" and it helps you avoid becoming one of the 80% of people who give up on their resolutions by mid-February.
These five steps helped people who followed them achieve their goals 80% of the time:
- Pick just one goal. Don't try to cure cancer and achieve world peace all at once. Pick the one that is most important and focus!
- Put it in writing. Write your goals down and put them in front of you so you see them every day!
- Make your goal public. Tell some trusted friends. Blast it on social media. It could be embarrassing, but it also is an incentive to stick with it.
- Keep yourself accountable. It's different than making your goal public. It involves getting a friend or co-worker involved directly - like meeting up to go to the gym or physically slapping the pizza out of your mouth.
- Have a plan if you fail. And that just doesn't mean eat Twinkies. You can't have an all or nothing mentality. If you slip up, forgive yourself and get right back to working on the goal.