2012: Who Else Wants To Keep Their New Year Resolutions?

As 2011 winds down, many of us are looking ahead toward the New Year with renewed hope and enthusiasm for empowering and making significant changes in our lives. However, no matter how “committed” we are to any one resolution, research shows that only 65% of people stick to their resolutions for part of the year, while the remaining 35% could barely utter the word “resolution” and not much else.

Here at myJoblinx, we’d like to remedy this sad stat and bring you a couple steps closer to achieving your own brand of success. Perhaps you want to lose weight? Quit smoking? Spend more time with family? Get a new job? Instead of fixating on your shortcomings, why not devote more time to developing the strengths that could enable you to get to your eventual goal? Whether it is professional or personal, these simple methods will help alter those behaviors which keep you from realizing the full potential of your talents and capabilities. New York Times bestselling author Matthew Kelly penned, “Our lives change when our habits change.” If you A.C.T. now, 2012 could be the turning point for a completely new direction in life.

Accountability. If you are looking for a job change, tell your friend or someone who won’t let you off the hook. Otherwise, laziness creeps in, you get busy at your current job, and next thing you know, it’s 2013. It’s also easy to keep your resolutions to yourself, but this is the trap most fall into. If you don’t make others around you aware of what you want to achieve, no one will ever support you towards that goal. Moreover, the old adage is true, “You are who you hang with.” You must surround yourself with people who are like-minded and equally driven.

When I worked as a real estate agent, I once heard that in order to find out what your eventual net worth would be, you had to divide your income by the 5 people you spent time with the most. At the time this was depressing because I was a poor college grad and an even poorer agent. Point being, if you want to lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle but have roommates who constantly eat out and never see natural daylight, you have to counter that lifestyle with something more akin to what you want to accomplish.

Commitment. Every day you must remind yourself of what the goals you want to realize. If you’ve written out your goal to Find A New Job in 6 months and place it on your bathroom mirror, it is the first reminder of that goal as your start your day. I’m a visual learner so I’ve found that having making a Vision Board is helpful in visualizing my ultimate goals and dreams. If you want to be a multimillion dollar CEO, cut out a picture of Mark Zuckerberg, better yet, why not Steve Jobs? For those who want to lose weight, they sometimes call this their thinspiration, and make it a point to scrutinize it before going to the gym. Whatever your goal, place it somewhere where you can see it throughout the course of your day to remind yourself of what it is you want to achieve.

Now that you’ve set your mind to the task, you have to commit to it. Perhaps you want to devote more time to the job search. Start small by carving out 10 minutes of your day to look through job sites. If you doing this at you current job, take care to enlist these covert tactics. Maybe the next day you take 15 minutes to revamp your resume, and the next day you make it a point to send out at least 3 resumes. I’ve found that if I write down the mini-goal I want to achieve for that day, there is much satisfaction in checking it off from my list. If you require something a bit more tech.0, 2Morrow Mobile has developed an app called “Resolutions 2012.” The app offers a buffet of predefined habits from health and fitness to personal success and not only records your daily efforts but also shares milestones with friends via email or Facebook.

Time. Good habits take time to form and there will be days where you will not be able to make any time for your resolutions. Don’t be discouraged! Everything is a process and it is in the little steps throughout the course of the day that help reach the bigger goals. After a couple weeks, re-evaluate what habits worked and what didn’t, that way you can focus on the ones that seem to be working for you. Garner the support of friends, family, colleagues and mentors. Sometimes an outside perspective can better identify problem areas in everyday behavior.

From all of us at myJoblinx, we wish you good luck on your New Year’s resolutions. What are your resolutions and how do you plan on keeping them? Like us and add your voice to the conversation.