How are your New Year’s resolutions coming along? By the time you read this blog eighty-percent of people who had a New Year’s resolution will have failed to keep it.

 A new year may be the start of a new chapter in your life. You can get rid of the old and embrace the new. While New Year’s resolutions seem like a great idea, many people fail to keep them within the first weeks of trying to achieve ambitious goals. Many of us fail to keep New Year’s resolutions because our goals were too big or too broad. We are looking for quick results, so we tend to get discouraged when we fail to achieve a goal the first time. Some fail to keep New Year’s resolutions because they imagine they will have a size six body in a few weeks. We don’t see fast results and so we give up. Not having a plan for how you will accomplish your resolutions is also a sure way to fail. Lacking self-belief and determination can also detour you from your new year’s goals. These and many other reasons may stop you from being successful with your New Year’s resolutions.

Therefore, I don’t believe in New Year resolutions. I understand why resolutions are important for many people, but I don’t believe that every time a new year comes around is the only time for change or creating a better you. Applying change and desiring a new you are available for you all throughout the year. You may start creating a healthier you in October or November. You may decide to have a better relationship with yourself today. Change and resolutions should not be limited to January. Change should be implemented any time you desire to write a new chapter or sentence in your book of life. Today, let’s not talk about New Year’s resolutions. Let’s talk about how to implement change and how to succeed with change anytime during the year!

Don’t wait for January 1 to apply change. If you are not getting the results you are seeking or what you desire, it’s okay to seek change any month of the year. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. When you need different results for your life, you must first identify what is not working for you and what you need to change to get better results in your life. Change is scary and uncomfortable, but to grow you must seek change.

When you have identified what changes, you would like to make in your life, it’s time to identify who you want to become. Are you looking to become healthier? Make more money? Build stronger relationships? As you identify your new vision, write a vision statement of who it is you are seeking to become. For example, “I want to be a healthier, more alive, and more energetic individual, so that I can live a long, healthy life and enjoy my children for a long time.”

To be successful with change you need to learn how to visualize what the new you will look like. Creative visualization requires creating mental imagery of what you desire for yourself. If you are desiring a healthier you, imagine that healthy person looking at you. What is she or he doing? Are you at the gym? Are you loving how you look in that new bathing suit? Bring your desires and images for the new you to your mind often. You should think of these desires as if they already exist. Believe that you are already healthy and look amazing right now. Focus on this vision and immerse yourself in that feeling often.

Big time goals don’t ever become a reality just because they exist in your mind and you believe in them. You must put action into what you want. If you want that smaller waist, thinner thighs, and abs of steel, you must hit the gym and be conscious of the food you eat. You need to take little steps.  Go for a thirty-minute walk. Substitute water for sugary drinks. Start small. Don’t run a marathon in a day or starve yourself. By building simple habits you will change your life in big way. Changing your life does not happen overnight. It happens because of little changes you implement every day.

If you have already failed to keep your New Year’s resolutions, it’s okay. The goals and dreams you had set out for yourself this year are not lost. Start again. Setting new goals and implementing change does not need to happen only in January. Life goals can be executed every day anytime of the year! If you are pursuing your goals, remember to treat the change process like a marathon and not a sprint.  Put action into your dreams or goals. Be patient and enjoy the process, and don’t forget to believe that everything is possible for you! Until next time, Believe. Change. Become!