Why You Shouldn’t Fret Over Failed New Year’s Resolutions

I recently read that 80% - 90% of people don’t stick to their resolutions.  

Kind of makes you think “why bother,” right?  

I used to always make crazy goals for myself.  Goals and resolutions that were near impossible to stick to and come February I’d be angry and frustrated.

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Why do we do that to ourselves???

I believe it is the excitement of a new year and general positivity (which don’t get me wrong…is a great thing). However, we feel inspired at the time and aren’t thinking about how we’ll feel about that resolution say on a random day in May.  Is your goal to exercise every single day?  To lose 100lbs by your vacation this Spring?  To become fluent in French by summer?  Huge goals like this can be overwhelming.

To avoid this feeling of overwhelm, I’ve created a method that has worked well for me.  With being so passionate about Feng Shui I decided a few years back to only begin to define my yearly goals at the first of the year.  I may journal on a few ideas and get the ball rolling.  My next step is to loosely implement them, and I also take several weeks to create a vision board.  Here’s the key… I don’t actually fully put anything into action until the Chinese New Year.  This year the Chinese New Year will be on Saturday, January 25th.  That is nearly a solid month of experimentation, time to meditate and journal on my goals, time for even evaluating what I want the outcome to look like, and lastly how my day to day actions may have to change to achieve this goal.

This method has worked well for me and I’d love for you to give it a try.  If you already have failed some of your  resolutions… just start over.

First, just take a big cleansing breath.  Then, take inventory of how you are feeling about each goal and adjust where needed.  Make everything attainable, small goals that add up to a larger goal and lastly make sure you give yourself time for experimentation and know that your day to day or week to week routine may have to change.  Be patient with yourself during this change and just get rid of all that pressure.  Do what you can to be honest with yourself and eventually you just have to throw your arms up to the universe and see what happens!