2025 is just a month away, and many people have already started crafting their New Year resolutions—from going to the gym to exercise, eating healthy and quality food, reading books, and upgrading oneself personally and professionally, to a long list of wishes and desires that keep coming back every end of the year, to form as a base for motivation.
Let me confidently state that 2025 will be no different for many people, as over 90 per cent of people I met over the years state they experience the same. I call this annual déjà vu. My humble advice is to not make 2025 just another year. I wrote an article a year ago for 2024, but this time, I will focus on the problem, that is the root cause.
So what is the problem? What most people believe they should be doing instead of what really aligns with their values and aspirations is the problem. The lack of a link between the two is the main issue that causes most of the resolutions to fail. Many think motivation is a key factor in one implementing a change, yet motivation is at most a temporary feeling, wish, or desire, especially with the ongoing life challenges that keep coming up in one way or another.
We all may have good motivations for change, but those all will be short-lived without a clear set of actions to solidify a concrete plan that would turn the ideas/intentions into reality. I am talking from experience, as I too have been sometimes a part of the bandwagon.
What can therefore be done?
First, ensure you reflect on your past year's resolutions. It is really important as you examine and be true to yourself on what worked and what has not worked. The insights you get out of the past reflection will help you refine your approach for your 2025 New Year resolutions and also help you from avoiding repeating the same mistakes again (if any).
Secondly, turn your wishes, aspirations, ideas, intentions, etc., into projects where it has clear timelines and includes all the necessary ingredients of running a project (i.e., who, what, where, how, etc.). Next, break this project into small chunks of meaningful and tangible action that you can undertake in an incremental manner—YES, Rome was not built in a day.
Lastly, commit to it by also celebrating even the small wins throughout the project journey—trust me, celebrating a win goes a long way in motivating you to complete the entire project and ultimately resolution as a change per se.
Ensure you stay flexible (as life can be filled with a lot of unexpected surprises). Adjust and adapt accordingly as you stay focused on the ultimate goal, and finally, ensure you set a periodic review on where you are and what you need to complete the project (i.e., your newly set resolutions). By following a proactive and intentional approach, I am confident that you can transform your resolutions into a tangible outcome.
To conclude, avoid making New Year’s resolutions every New Year’s Eve (i.e., at the beginning of every year in the month of January). Instead, make them during the year as a journey of intentional action and reflection.
A motivation, as I described in my article today, is no doubt a good intention, yet without a clear plan of action coupled with distinct timelines, one would end up going in circles like the mass. I will try in my upcoming articles to share some tips that one could follow in order to progress with ideas that can be turned into reality. Until then, stay safe and remain positive.
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