Why New Year’s resolution fails?

Photo by Spenser Sembrat on Unsplash

Did you missed your new year’s resolution last 2019? Were you able to achieve those goals that you listed on your notebook/journal? Or those just ended up again being rolled forwarded as your 2020 New Year’s resolution?

“Why is this “New Year’s resolution” always ended-up not being accomplished?….”

We all have the situation before, which somewhat made us think…

“What did I do this year? Why I haven’t accomplish any of these resolutions” (if not, at least not most of it).

The reason that you are here just implies that you too is experiencing the same problem that most people is currently experiencing. We often feel this regret (deep inside us) and hatred to ourselves for not doing or achieving it, however, we have to be aware that these all happen for some reasons.

More often than not we often neglect things critical to accomplish these goals and ended up not achieving any of those. We often got too motivated on the first day or week of January, then ended up not accomplishing any of those at the end-of the year.

You don’t have to hate yourself but you have to come prepared for this year and do not let yourself from letting things slide again. You have to guard yourself and achieve what you truly wanted to happen for this year.

You need first to understand what caused you to forget or neglect these resolutions.

You know what are those??….

These are the most common problems that has caused you to neglect or set aside your New Year’s resolution:

1. 1. We don’t walk the talk (No commitment)
      Remember when you announced to everyone that you will lose some weight this year. You will start saving more? You will go to the gym regularly? You will start your business?I know you’ve felt the excitement and the adrenaline to make it happen and then suddenly on the 2nd week, it dies off instantly. As if we don’t have any New Year’s Resolution at all.

      We are often driven by the excitement to do something new and ended up not doing it once the feeling of New-Year’s-Resolution-fever has wear off. Often times we are not fully committed into something that we are only doing such things not for ourselves but for the validation of others opinion or sometimes what we call “because this is what others are doing” or “because this is cool”.

      We often lack the commitment necessary to keep us moving from one place over the other. You need to have more accountability on yourself and be aware of the actions you are taking towards your goals.

      What you can do?
      a) Have an accountability partner watching over your progress. (This can be your spouse, bestfriends, siblings or anyone whom you trust fully.)
      b) Search within yourself and see if this is really want you wanted for yourself. Ask yourself if this is just something that other people has imposed you or it is something that you truly wants for yourself.
      c) Have a journal! Check the benefits of having a journal here.

   2. You forgot about your New Year’s resolution
      Again, when we’re starting to feel the boredom and started missing out checking the progress of your goals, you become busy with other things and eventually starts to neglect your New Year’s resolution.We often write it down in new year’s eve and after a few months this handwritten resolution will go somewhere and will be neglected forever. Have you ever felt that you missed another year without achieving your goals, the feeling that you can’t bring back the year that has passed and just have to accept it that you now need to work it out again to achieve it at the end of the year.

      The secret here is to make it easier for yourself to remember it and to help yourself from neglecting it. You have to make a plan to keep yourself reminded on what truly matters to you.

      What you can do?
      a) Write down your resolutions and ensure that you will put it on a place where you can easily read it.
      b) Always read your goals! The more you read it, the bigger the chance that it will marked  your mind consciously and subconsciously.
      c) Set a daily/weekly reminder for your goals or the planned actions towards your goals.

   3. Not specific enough!
      We often heard that you want to lose some weight, but you never were able to quantify how many pounds or kilos your are planning to lose. We are often trapped on this mindset that if we already set it, it is already okay and didn’t realize that this sabotages our own goals.The unknown often lead us to inaction, which means that if we set a goal that is too vague and not specific enough, it feeds ourselves to not doing it instead as it doesn’t have any specific actionable plan.

      Have you ever thought about this… “How can you go to a place that you yourself don’t even know?”

      You have to be more specific on which place you really wanted to go to avoid inactions. These inactions are just the result of fear of failing that we often encounter whenever we wanted to achieve or do something difficult.

      What you can do?
      a) Define your goal, make it more specific!
      b) Always break it into smaller task (e.g., I will lose weight in 2020… instead.. I will 20 pounds thru weekly gym sessions)
      c) Remember that when you felt that it is not clear on what to do for your goals. It just mean that it is still vague.

   4. You don’t have any back-up plans
      #1 reason why at the end of 1st month almost 80% who started there New Year’s resolution fails to continue it, that’s because they failed to prepare their back-up plans. We all forgot to have our back-up plans in cases that we failed to do our planned actions for our goals consistently, we often neglect how important this is in forgiving ourselves and to bring us back again to the grind.It all started when you first missed going to the gym or just 1 scoop of ice cream or just the first time you pressed again the snooze button. Then it will be followed by a series of failures to accomplish your goals. Until you arrived at the point that you won’t do it anymore.

      This is a typical story for each of us. We are all guilty of this, but what we often forget is we should have our back-up plan if ever we failed to do it consistently or we missed out that 1 session. We should have a plan how we can go back again to our initial state as being motivated.

      We have to create a plan for us to ensure that whatever happens we will always be on track. The problem is not really if we can do it, but more of, if we can do it again consistently after we have already missed doing it.

      What you can do?
      a) Create an if-then plan. If you missed out doing it, then you have to do this…Doing this ensures that you have you back-up plans whenever you get out of track of your goals.
      b) Always take into consideration that at some point you will feel burned out or exhausted. You just have to take a break and continue doing it again.
      c) Always forgive yourself if you missed out a session and start doing it again.

   5. Your fear is holding you back
      At the end of the day our greatest enemy will always be ourselves. The fear within our mind that keeps us from doing the best that we can. It always commands us to avoid everything that it thought would give us harm.This is what you always thought about… “what if?”..”What if you fail?””what if this is not really for you?”…”what if this is all you can do?”

 

1. Those are the voice of your fears that keeps you from doing what you really have to do. These fears and doubts has killed almost everyone’s dreams. You shouldn’t listen to this and focus on what you really wanted. Remember that at the

end of the
day, everyone will succeed and those who quits are the ones who will only fail. 

1. We have to keep in our mind that if we haven’t failed yet, we will never achieve the kind of success that we wanted for our life.

 

1. What can you do?

 

1. a) Read more about the biographies of successful people. You will realize how they pushed themselves to reach their goals.

 

1. b) Be aware about your thoughts, have you journals.

 

c) Always push yourself and always try to go out of your comfort zones. This will boost how you see yourself, and will give you more insights on the things that you can do.