Popular New Year's Resolution Essay

Popular New Year's Resolutions include: losing weight, saving money, and exercising regularly.[1] If you’re like me and about one third of American adults you’ll make at least one New Year's Resolution, and if you’re like 22% of the folks who made New Year's Resolutions, you may find yourself breaking your plans as early as 1 week into the New Year.[2]

What makes us break our self-improvement plans so quickly? It’s not as if we’re pledging to move mountains, but it seems like a simple resolution to lose weight or to get organized may as well be as big as a mountain without a winnable strategy.

In my experience as a professional life coach, winnable strategies include actions to help us avoid these common reasons for not seeing our resolutions

You’ll need to be honest about your knowledge and experience. Remember, you’re playing for results so you’ll need to be smart in all that you do. Perhaps you’ll need to educate yourself about something before you can fully engage.

All too often, people overestimate their skill and availability or underestimate the challenges ahead. This creates unreasonable expectations which leads to unachievable goals.

The $64,000 Question
Is it winnable? Is your New Year’s resolution one that you can see yourself playing for and winning? Most people are pretty good at picturing the finish line but forget to also picture themselves playing through the year. Can you see yourself in action Monday to Sunday the 52 weeks leading up to the finish line? Don’t skip over this part because it’s within the vision of actually playing for results that you’ll discover whether or not your resolution is winnable.

Are we there yet?
You’ll know you’ve found the right resolution when the vision of playing and winning inspires you to think bigger and to do more. The right challenge will stretch you, but not break you. Keep in mind that you won’t win every challenge no matter how well you plan your strategy, but with this approach, you’ll know you are a