Dream Big: The Ultimate Guide to Setting New Year’s Resolutions & Achieving Them

Let’s talk New Year’s resolutions. We know, we know. They tend to have a bad reputation, but did you know that making resolutions is actually the perfect gift that you can give yourself?

Allow us to explain! Setting goals for yourself is a great way of motivating yourself, inspiring yourself and they also help you to achieve the things in life that you want for yourself.

Setting some resolutions at the start of the year allow you to see where you’re heading and they also help to keep you focussed on what it is that you want from life.

Now, we understand that when you have goals and dreams for yourself, they can sometimes feel overwhelming, especially if you have no idea how to tackle them or where to start.

The good news is that we’ve got you covered. Here is the ultimate guide to setting your New Year’s resolutions.

Decide what your final target is: Sit down with a piece of paper and scribble down your end goal. What is it that you’d like to ultimately achieve from all your hard work? Now, your brain is likely to go a bit mad with the auld fanciful ideas when you give it free reign like this. The important thing is not to limit yourself, write it all down and get it onto paper.

When you’ve finished, put on your realistic hat and have a good gawk at all your ideas. What things make your heart pound (but in a good way)? If something inspires major good feelings and excitement, then it’s worth picking it as one of your resolutions for 2013. After all, you’re more likely to fail if you’re working towards something that seems dull and boring.

A word of advice: don’t go too mad picking resolutions. You’re just starting off so be gentle on yourself. Pick one or two at a time. You don’t want to put any huge pressure on yourself.

Breaking your goals down can improve your chances of success majorly

Break your resolution down: Once you’ve decided on your end result, the rest of the process is pretty easy. Simply break your main target into small little steps that you can take on a daily basis. This will give you a better chance of achieving your resolutions and will make the task seem much more manageable.

Here’s an example. Say your main goal is to feel healthy, here are some small steps you could take to achieve that goal.

You could buy a book on nutrition. You could read it. You could make small changes to your diet. You could start walking for two nights a week. You could up your walking to three nights a week when you feel better. You could join a yoga class. You could start exercising with your friends, and so forth.

It really is that simple. Break it down and set small, easy-to-achieve mini-targets.

Take action: Once you have your mini-targets set, it’s time to take action. How do you do that? Well you get out and start actively working on them. The more mini-targets you complete, the closer you are to achieving your main goal. Simples!