Most people at around 12.05am on New Years Day will either make a new year resolution or they will make it later on that day, perhaps when they have gone to bed and recovered from the celebrations from the night before.
Most resolutions (running a marathon this year, getting fit, quit smoking, drinking etc) die a death by 31st Jan. Why?
For a start they are usually not written down anywhere. There may be no one to answer to on the goal or aspiration i.e no one else knows therefore no one else know's you've failed!
We are all adverse to failure, seeing it as a bad thing and no one likes to fail.
If we reframe this and say "There are no failures, only outcomes" we can change our mental state and adopt new strategies for future success. Just because we did not get the desired outcome straight away, does not mean we should give in. This we do this when learning to walk, read and write and riding our bikes? Nope, we did not!
So, in order to make our goal setting successful try the following approach and see if it works for you and if it does not, change it until it does. You will have more success than before guaranteed!
1) make a list in a journal of things you want to achieve in 2009. Have one financial, one personal, one work, one family goal. Put them in an order you feel is most important to you, and write down by each goal why it is important and how it will change your life. If your reasons are not compelling enough for you you will not do it! Fact!
Also make a public declaration to someone close to you who will push you to attain the end objective. And make the goals attainable, not easy but not impossible in 12 months. You have to be realistic.
2) next work out how you can achieve them and make a plan for each goal. People, resources you may need.
3) every day or as often as possible do something positive towards the goal, even if it is thinking about it. Feel, visualise its attainment but also make sure you are taking steps to it.
4) in your journal monitor your progess. Keep your friend in the loop with how you are doing also. If you do not achieve your goal in the desired time frame should you give up? I'll leave that answer for you to figure out.......but as long as we are making progress all the time either financially or personally our lives can be significantly better than they are now if we just take action.
Happy New Year
Adrian Kidd
Financial Planner
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