Why I only have one NY resolution

It’s that time of year when everyone thinks about New Year’s resolutions. This is natural and a great thing to do. It is the opportunity to draw a line under the previous 12 months and start again. A chance to make some changes in our lives and to try something different. 

Many people will have set themselves goals such as exercising more, eating healthily, spending less time on social media and saving money.

But I am making only one New Year’s resolution. I am committing to bring discipline into my life. Some people may consider discipline an old-fashioned concept, but every good habit stems from discipline. 

It takes discipline to exercise regularly. It takes discipline to resist bad food. It takes discipline to control time spent on social media and it takes discipline to spend less money. 

By committing to bring discipline into every aspect of our lives, we are committing to do all of the above and more.

Research shows about 90 per cent of New Year’s resolutions are broken within the first month. And it is no wonder when people are setting themselves a challenging task without changing their mindset.

If you tell yourself you can’t have something, naturally you will crave it. It will become all you think about and you will eventually give in and fail. Introducing discipline into your life involves shifting your thinking, adopting a new attitude and getting things done. 

Many of us have the same conversations year in year out about what improvements we want to make in our lives, but we never do them. Discipline is about taking control, getting organised and making things happen. 

At some point in our lives, we have all thrown discipline out the door. It's a question of bringing it back in. It will not happen overnight. It's a gradual process of adjustment, which requires us having ongoing positive conversations about the changes we want to happen.

But there are two small things we can do to set us on the right path as we start each day: getting out of bed within a few seconds of waking up and always making our bed. 

By doing these two simple acts we are making a commitment to being disciplined. This makes us more likely to take the disciplined option with decisions we face throughout the day. It may sound ridiculous, but try it and you will see the difference it makes.

With discipline in our lives, we suddenly find we have plenty of time to do everything we want. The great pay-off is significant personal and professional progress, which endures long after the sun has set on January.

I am a certified trainer of the Jack Canfield Success Principles and this is the first in a series of articles that I will be writing this year to help keep the conversation going so that we don’t lose sight of our goals and we all enjoy a successful 2019!

Here’s a radio interview I did on the topic of New Year's resolutions on Dubai Eye's Business Breakfast - have a listen here.