January 2009, Issue 15

New Year's Reso-DO-tions

Happy New Year! I hope this coming year brings you and your family much health, happiness, and success. Have you started thinking about your new year's resolutions for 2009? In the spirit of new beginnings, here are some tips to help them last past January.

1. Make time in your schedule. Say you want to lose those last five pounds, or that you'll start organizing your messy bedroom closet? Now look at your calendar. Have you pencilled in time to achieve these goals? What actions will you need to take to get you there? After you write your list, make sure that it appears on your calendar as well.
   
   
2. Reward yourself. One way to ensure lasting results is to reward yourself after you accomplish even the smallest goals. Be your biggest fan! When you make a healthier meal choice or adhere to your weekly budget, give yourself another fifteen minutes to sleep or take an extra long shower. Relish in those moments.
   
   
3. Make it fun. Oftentimes when I find that I really don't want to do something, I set a timer and give myself a set amount of time for myself to accomplish the task. Creating a playful race for myself motivates me and also makes me feel as though the activity has an end to it.
   
   
4. Partner up. Enlist in an accountability buddy! When you're feeling down or discouraged, you will have someone whose job is to get you out of your rut. Similarly, when you've accomplished that once seemingly impossible goal, you will have someone to call to congratulate you and sing your praises!
   
   
5. Thoughts become things. Embrace your creative side and design a vision board for yourself. What's a vision board, you may ask? It starts off as a blank canvas and you paste images of all of the things you want. Use magazines, photos, Google images - whatever may work for you. The idea is that by seeing the things that you want daily, you will ultimately manifest those things and they will become your realities.