I don’t know about you, but I have always wondered why my new year’s resolutions almost never came to fruition, at least 80% of them. Most of us will wake up on the “morning after” new years and start writing down something we kind of want and put up a bunch of “shoulds” for the rest of the year. A few weeks later, we’ve almost forgotten half of them and deep down inside, we truly know that we are not going to follow through on the rest of them. And surely by September, if we are lucky nothing has been done and this cycle continues year after year.

The question is why? Why do we always go through this vicious cycle of mediocrity every year? I call it the mediocrity cycle of excuses because most of us will do whatever it takes and with many “good” excuses try and keep in that comfort zone. I must admit, I was apart of this cycle for a long while but for a couple of years now, I decided to raise my standards and do things a little different. The good news is, it’s not too late for you BUT the bad news is that it’s not easy to create the small disciplines and consistency required to see this through.

So then how did I, infact, how do I try and work on this issue now year after year? Start with the following four steps:

1. Compelling Vision – Those of you that know me would probably describe me as passionate and generally positive person. The key to setting goals that you will surely follow through on is to make sure that the vision for your life is compelling enough. Your vision must be so exciting, so powerful that when you think about it, you can’t even afford to sleep. Your vision should excite you and challenge you and make you think everyday on how to achieve it. New year resolutions are not compelling enough because in most cases they are made in the moment without enough thought and commitment. 90% of the people make resolutions, make them on the 2nd of January, I did for years and nothing came off it.
2. Strong Enough Reasons – After you make the vision and create your goals in relation to your vision, you then must have strong enough reasons why you must achieve the goals you have set. These reasons have personally helped me to not give up when the tough gets going and surely in life, things change, circumstances force you to review or give up. The inevitable challenges come up in life, these reasons could be both positive and negative but they do keep you in check to try and achieve that dream or goal no matter what or no matter how long it will take.
3. Review Everyday – So now you have a compelling vision, reasons why you must achieve your goal, the next step should be to review your goals on a daily basis. I remember the first time I bought my very first car – a black toyota starlet gt turbo 1997. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for almost a whole year before I bought it, I would tell everyone who cared to listen about this “machine”, I would go to the car bond every week to just have a look at its replica. I started saving for it on my very first salary. I was passionate about it, obsessed to say the least and I knew how much I need to deposit on the car with some Japanese car dealer everyday. I had a goal, I had “many” compelling reasons and I reviewed my goal everyday until I achieved it. I had so much intensity and focus that nothing would have stopped me from getting this car.
4. Raise Your Standards – Ultimately, if you’re going to grow in anything you do then one thing to do is to always raise your standards. After I got that Toyota, a few months later – no perhaps 24 months later, I wanted a new amazing machine. I raised my standards to something bigger, faster and stronger that I didn’t even know how to afford – but I wanted it. It now was a MUST get for me, it was everything I ever wanted in that moment. You see friends the lesson I learnt on this, is that lasting change in a goal is always better than the goal itself, goals can always be achieved or missed but progressive lasting change that has been raised to a certain standard keeps you going. Instead of having a GOAL to get a six pack, how about raising a standard to achieve the fitness level that you had while still playing basketball 10-15 years ago – that’s lasting change!

At the end of the day, we live life as who we believe we are and we will do whatever it takes to protect that identity. If you believe you cannot lose weight because you have a family BIG WEIGHT gene, then you will program your subconscious mind that this can’t be achieved. This mindset follows you in any area of your life – finance, career, family, relationships and others and hence why most of us find it difficult to achieve our new year’s resolutions.