New Year makeover

Standard Correspondent

Here we are, once again at the beginning of yet another year with great possibilities. The fireworks and party time is over, and now it’s time to get down to work. I bet everyone is so excited about how much they need to get on with their lives.

You are finally going to join the gym, and be faithful to the dieting. You are going to mail those application letters before the end of the week so you can finally get that dream job you have been fantasising about. Whatever your goals for the New Year might be, you are likely not to keep them, again.

I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but let’s face it: how many times have you been down this road and by the end of January, your excitement has waned and you are already either procrastinating, or exhausted to the bone?

Most people hardly get around to giving their year the much-needed makeover because they either set goals that are not worth centering their lives around, or they pick a thousand goals to work on all at once. Who has the energy to try and achieve ten major things all at once?

You cannot for instance, realistically set aside money for school, a holiday trip, and starting a business all at once, where you do not have the necessary income.

Set priorities

There have to be priorities in place; you may need to get your business off the ground first, before you can be able make enough from that to go back to school, and to have enough left over for a holiday.

Everyone has one major thing they feel they need to work on, to get ahead. The best way give your New Year a workable makeover would be to pick the most important goal and work from there. By important, I do not mean uncluttering your kitchen, or watering your small garden. It has to be something big enough to work your life around.

Most major goals are centered on making life changes: quitting smoking, working on your marriage, losing weight and getting healthier, going back to school, kick starting your career, the list is endless.

The one way you can succeed in giving transforming this year, is to get the most important and urgent resolutions out of the way first. And, how soon or how much you achieve all depends on how badly you want that ultimate success. Truth be told, the more the resolutions, the harder it is to keep up, and therefore the most likely we are not to follow through any of them.

You may ask: Isn’t focusing on only one goal a total waste of time and energy, when I can actually be achieving tens of things every day? You will actually be surprised how much changing one thing in your life requires you to change several small other things to go along with the big change.

First things first

For instance, if you are working towards sobriety, that means hanging out less, which means more time in the evenings for you to focus on other more important things like family.

It also means you save the money you would otherwise have used on alcohol for other more important things, like daily household expenses. In other words, other aspects of your life are being affected and improved every day because of this major change.

How to go about ensuring you achieve that goal:

When you are setting your goal, you have to be able to picture your life after the goal. Having something to look forward to at the end makes it all the more worth working for. If you are planning to lose weight, for example, it would be more effective if you had a cute outfit in place, like that size 12 dress you have always wanted to fit into.

Imagining how shapely you will look in it or any other outfits for that matter will help you stick to the diets and workout regimens.

Whatever you goal may be, there have to be immediate plans put in place to ensure it is achieved.

Having a goal in place without a plan in place to follow it through is wading through uncharted waters. You have to translate you goal into clear steps that will tell you want to do in order of priority to finish the goal.

If your goal is to rekindle the romance in your marriage, you need to do small things everyday to please your spouse, like making them special dinners, buying them flowers, and all, until you start getting back in sync together.

If you have a hard time remembering what the steps in the goal are, keep a journal. Write everything down so you can checklist as you go along. This way you do not forget exactly what it is you are trying to achieve.

Extra attention

Do not look at your goal as a setback to your life; it can fall into step with all other daily activities, but this is the one thing you have to pay extra attention to every single day, and make conscious steps towards achieving it.

You have to look at these makeovers as life changing-steps that will help make your life more enriching and fulfilling.

Once a resolution gets off the ground, you do not abandon it for the next big goal. Once you lose the weight, you do not go back to junking; you find ways to maintain it because you have finally reached your ultimate weight goal.

When things get back on track in your relationship, you continue to work that magic.

The work has not stopped now that you have managed to fulfill your goals; it has simply headed in a better and healthier direction.

Recognise that there will be times you will fall back on your goals. This is not the time to give up. Ultimately anything in life that is worth pursuing has its challenges, so we have to expect fall backs every now and then.

This is where most people are likely to abandon their pursuits and take up new ones. Look at the small successes you have made along the way. Keep a journal if you have to, if only to remind yourself how far you have come and how little you have left to finish off.

Whatever it is you have planned, start the New Year with a positive attitude and great expectations. No matter how difficult the previous year may have been, having a positive mind-set actually causes you to push towards making things better in spite of your circumstances.

Do not let your situation define your New Year for you, otherwise you risk being down-trodden into November. There is no magic, or quick fix. Everything has to be worked for. Do not leave anything hanging; if you really want to get rid of that nagging feeling that your life is not exactly in as good a place as you want it to be, then you have to do something about that feeling.