The new year has started! So time for good intentions. Unfortunately, sticking to your good intentions is easier said than done. Fortunately, the way you formulate them can help enormously! This is how to phrase them correctly.
Be clear and specific
Some New Year’s resolutions are good, but too vague. Wanting to live a healthier life is a great goal, but you don’t really have a clear picture of how you are going to do it. Will you live a healthier life by exercising more or exercising more? Or both? If you cannot get from your good intention what you actually want to do, then it is too vague. Think about how you want to achieve the goal in order to set clearer resolutions.
Set measurable goals
When writing good goals, we usually write down the words more or less. Think of wanting to exercise more or spend less money. These are good goals to have, but they are not measurable. If you don’t make a goal measurable, you have no point to work towards. Having a measurable goal can be very motivating, you are really working towards something. So instead of saying ‘I want to read more in 2024’, write down that you want to read at least 20 books in 2024, for example.
Be realistic
Good intentions are nice to have. But if you really want to make it work, they have to be feasible. When you write down your goals, it is good to take into account how much time and effort you can and want to put into them. Your goals will look incredibly unattainable if you set the bar too high. This can cause a lot of loss of motivation. You can keep your goals small in your formulation but leave room to take a larger approach. For example, write down that you want to go to the gym at least twice a week in the new year. If it becomes three or even four times a week, that will only be a bigger victory for yourself.
Keep it short and sweet
When drawing up our New Year’s resolutions, we can sometimes become a little too enthusiastic. This can cause our goals to get quite out of hand. Your sentences become long and confusing, making a goal seem anything but attainable. You want to eat less fast food, drink less soft drinks and eat more fruit. Phew, that’s a mouthful. These aren’t bad goals to have, but the wording makes it harder to actually stick to them. So turn these three accumulated goals into three separate goals. This gives you more overview and makes sticking to your good intentions a lot easier.
