Keeping Your New Year's Resolution on Plan
I intentionally waited this year to decide a resolution for 2018 because as in past years it seems to be a rushed proclamation that happens close to midnight on the 31st of December but is not very well thought out.
This year I took some time to evaluate what I truly wanted to start, change, grow, build upon or enhance in my life and what better time is there to dream about my future than after celebrating the birthday of the civil rights pioneer Dr. Martin Luther King.
What Dr. King means to me and how his life was significant has a lot to do with not only his undertakings to pursue racial equality, but the dedication, energy and perseverance necessary to fight to end racial injustice and create opportunities for all.
Dr. King knew that by taking his message to the world he was willing to pour his heart and soul into a mission to achieve a goal that could put his entire family’s future at risk for a much greater good. In a much different way than Dr. King, each day we put the future of our legacies at risk as well.
Another reason I decided to mark this 16th day as significant to my new year’s resolution, is because generally in past years by this time in the New Year, I have reverted back to my ways of the previous year. Not to say that my prior habits were bad, only to say that my new ambitions that usually require more work or different habits seem to have met that proverbial snooze button of progress.
Here’s What is Different Now
First there is no shortage of self-help articles out there that profess to deliver a better body, weight loss, better eating, abs, more money, a better business etc. I agree that many of these plans can deliver results through realistic goal setting, positive thinking and 30 consecutive days of measurable activities. It’s really that easy, or is it.
Just get started and then what happens, life happens.
When life happens, we fall back into to the comforts that made us comfortable in the first place. Albeit, many of us could already be successes in our own right but there is something burning inside of us that wants more. You know what your more is….
The great challenge is how do you get to it? How do you become the person you were truly created to be? Steven Covey wrote in his “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” to Begin with the End in Mind. The more often you can visualize this picture of your life, the easier it becomes to write your success plan.
Get on the Train, Stay on the Train
So here’s what I learned, and why you and I will see our greatest success this year!
It will be done by humanizing the goal setting process. I have read some new research that I plan to incorporate in my goal achievement for 2018 called “Emergency Reserves.”
You may know it as cheat days, but I believe if we include an Emergency Reserve that can rescue us on days when life happens, it will allow us to remain focused on completing our goal, while not derailing our progress only to go back to cookies and cigarettes on a daily basis.
This means that in your 30, 60, 90 day plan to greatness, give yourself 2, 3, or 4 days of emergency reserve, these days are not schedule days, just a reserve that will rescue all your hard work when you just can follow through. Soon you will be spending more time on your plan and working even harder to keep from spending your emergency reserves.
Visualize your greatness, write down your goals, implement a plan of activities to accomplish your goals, start the work, and when life happens it is not the end of improvement. Take a lifeline by using your “emergency reserves” and get yourself back on track.
You can do it, you will do it, and it will change your life! Keep me posted on your success story.
Earl Johnson is a registered investment advisor representative with a focus on retirement wealth planning, with EverGreen Capital Management based in Omaha, NE.