Goal Setting – Why New Year’s Resolutions Waste Your Time & What to Do to Accomplish More Goals

When I first received the following guest article, I thought “As if!” I mean, I’m the queen of all New Year’s Resolutions and truly believe in them (personal experience backs me up). Yet here’s an article wanting to present itself to my friends on Self Help Daily and it’s waving its anti New Year’s Resolutions flag.

Ha! Like I’m ever going to publish that sort of thing. I thought, “I’ll be kind enough to read the article, then I’ll get back to my resolutions…” Problem is, I read the article and I totally liked the article.

What’s more: I’m totally publishing the article. Enjoy! I’ll be back later with the other side of the story – when I wave my PRO New Year’s Resolution flag. 😉

Goal Setting – Why New Year’s Resolutions Waste Your Time & What to Do to Accomplish More Goals
By Karim Ismail

If you’re looking to accomplish more goals this coming year then forget about New Year’s resolutions. The people that profit the most from New Year’s resolutions are…

* Owners of fitness centers
* Authors of weight loss books
* People who sell programs about how to make money online
* Other sellers of things we use to try to fulfill our dreams and fantasies

The people that make the resolutions don’t tend to benefit as much from their resolutions. Case in point: When is the last time you heard someone say something like, “I started my successful business as a result of a New Year’s resolution?”

I’ve never heard anyone say that and I suspect you haven’t either. That’s because resolutions are mostly based on feelings. It’s the beginning of a new year and we want it to be a new beginning for ourselves as well.

This desire for change is well and good, of course. The momentum that comes from change helps propel us forward. But instead of expecting a resolution to give you this momentum (it won’t) I recommend trying this exercise instead.

What You Should Be Doing Instead of Relying on Your New Year’s Resolutions

1. After the first of the year, schedule an appointment with yourself. Grab a notebook or a laptop and go to a quiet place-a coffee shop, a room in your house, or even a night alone in a hotel-and write a letter to yourself as if you were writing from the future, one year from now.

In my book Keep Any Promise I write about the importance of setting audacious goals.In this letter, describe what you are doing a year from now and make sure what you’re describing -career, house, vacations or whatever your writing about is audacious as possible. But, don’t make it totally outside the realm of possibility.

2. Remember, you are writing the letter to yourself from the future. Address the letter to yourself and sign it with your name. Here’s an example of something I might write:

“Dear Karim,

No doubt that it is a freezing cold Canadian winter day as you’re reading this. Rest assured that a year from this date you will be spending a vacation in the Fiji Islands. The weather here is perfect.

The Keep Any Promise Live Workshops were more successful this past year than I could have possibly imagined. Enrollment was more than triple what it was last year, making the Fiji trip possible…”

Write in this way for as many paragraphs and pages as you wish. Don’t worry about grammar and writing style because no one else has to see this letter. The whole purpose is to get you thinking beyond mere resolutions and thinking much bigger and more long term than you normally would.

3. Don’t restrict yourself to things like career and vacation. Feel free to talk about things like home decor and other small goals you might have. Those are important too. For example, maybe there’s an expensive appliance you’ve wanted for some time but couldn’t afford. Things like this have a place in the letter too.

4. After writing the letter, read it very carefully and meditate upon it. In your mind’s eye visualize the things in your letter coming to pass. Then put the letter away until the next year. Resist the temptation to pull it out and read it during the year. Wait and reread it a year from now and before writing your next letter. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how close you’ve come to achieving the audacious goals of the previous year-maybe you will have even surpassed some of them!

Accomplishing Goals Can Become Automatic
If you follow my advice, you will accomplish more goals than if you just set mere resolutions that fade away before Valentine’s Day. You’ll find yourself automatically making decisions throughout the year that will make your audacious goals possible. This will happen without you even realizing it. For example, if I had set the audacious goal of a trip to Fiji, throughout the year I will automatically notice ads for Fiji. I would find myself making decisions in my business to increase my income so that I can pay for the trip. It has a snowball effect!

The story format really helps pull everything together and it will help you visualize your audacious goals and implant them in your subconscious. Now, you will be able to achieve more in the next 12 months than you have in the previous 12 years.

In his new book “Keep Any Promise,” Karim Ismail provides many other exercises and tools that will help you achieve your audacious goals this coming year so you can be successful in business and life Now, you can get started with my free Life Quiz at: http://www.KeepAnypromise.com. This Life Quiz is a survey about YOU (think of it as a 50 Point Personal Check Up) and will help you create your successful life blueprint for a satisfying life.

*** What are your personal thoughts about New Year’s Resolutions?  Let us know in the comments! – Joi