Goal Setting Activity:
5 Simple Ways To Keep New Year's Resolutions

The easiest way to achieve a goal is to do a simple goal setting activity (or two or three or five!). Spending a little time planning out your goals and how you will achieve them makes all the difference.

Here are 5 goal setting activities that will help you commit to and achieve your new year's resolutions. I explain these methods using myself as an example and my success as proof that this works. Enjoy and good luck!

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5 Simple Ways To Keep New Year's Resolutions

Goal Setting Activity #1: Be specific.

Be really, really specific. Instead of just saying that you're going to lose weight, specify the HOW of getting to your goal. How you are going to do it? And how much weight do you want to lose?

Using myself as an example, I answered these questions and "I want to lose weight" became..."I'm going to lose 15 pounds by hula hooping on a regular basis." Hula hooping was my HOW and I also specified how many pounds I wanted to shed. Now on to the next goal setting activity!

Goal Setting Activity #2: Break it down.

Make molehills out of mountains with this goal setting activity. Break down your resolutions into small, doable tasks. You don't put a whole plate of food in your mouth at once, do you? Let's do the same for our goals. Take one bite at a time. Each bite is a small, doable task.

Applying this step to my weight loss goal looked like this: I'm going to lose 15 pounds by hula hooping for 15 minutes a day for 3 days each week. That's a total of 45 minutes a week...so doable!

Goal Setting Activity #3: Tell someone.

Tell other people, or in my case, tell the whole world! When you let friends and family (and followers, if you're posting online) know about your goals and plans, it becomes more official. They may take interest and ask about your progress along the way, therefore holding you more accountable to achieving your aim.

This hula hooping example I've been using was one of my 2012 new years resolutions. I kept myself accountable by telling my family and friends that I had started hula hooping for exercise. Then I started posting videos on YouTube of my progress, and I gained a following. Hence, I really stuck with it...after all, I couldn't let my fans down!

Goal Setting Activity #4: Schedule time for it.

Be intentional with your time and block off periods in your week to dedicate to working towards your goal. Knowing you need to do something is very different from actually scheduling it on your calendar. If it's on your calendar, it's much more likely that you will do it.

This works for me too. I get things done when they are on my calendar. I picked time slots that were realistic and scheduled appointments each week for these 15 minute hula hooping sessions for a few months.

I recommend you do the same until this resolution has become a habit. In my case, I really started to love hula hooping to the point that I now do it for 30 minutes to an hour almost every day of the week without scheduling it and without "making" myself do it!

Goal Setting Activity #5: Reward your progress.

Reward yourself when you make positive progress, and cut yourself some slack when you don't.

Rewarding yourself can be anything that motivates you. Perhaps it's a physical gift like a new accessory or a good-smelling candle. Maybe it's an experience like a massage or a manicure. Or it could just be a verbal reward like in my case. Whenever I lost a pound or learned a new hula hooping trick, I would announce it to my husband for some praise.

Be gentle on yourself if you don't make positive progress. This is just as important as rewarding yourself. We aren't perfect and that's just fine. Give yourself some slack and then get back on the goal-achieving wagon. If I missed a hula hooping session, then I would do it a little longer the next day and not dwell on it.

There you have it: 5 goal setting activities that will help you achieve your aim. Doing all 5 tips will certainly propel you towards your goal, however I recommend starting with one and building from there in order to avoid overwhelm. Doing just one will definitely help too! I hope you learned something useful in this post and good luck on the journey to accomplishing your goals.

Using a goal setting activity (or two or three or four or five!) doesn't only work for new years resolutions. Learn how to set realistic goals and about reaching all the aims you set for yourself!

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