Did you know that today is the worst possible day for your New Years Goals? Let me tell you why… but first, some interesting stats:
Top 11 New Years Goals
According to Statistic Brain, here are the Top 11 New Years Resolutions (as researched on January 1, 2017)
Look at #1… did you know that according to anecdotal research, today, the second Thursday in February, is one of the best days for fast food restaurant sales!
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1
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Lose Weight / Healthier Eating | 21.4% |
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2
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Life / Self Improvements | 12.3% |
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3
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Better Financial Decisions | 8.5% |
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4
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Quit Smoking | 7.1% |
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5
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Do more exciting things | 6.3% |
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6
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Spend More Time with Family / Close Friends | 6.2% |
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7
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Work out more often | 5.5% |
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8
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Learn something new on my own | 5.3% |
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9
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Do more good deeds for others | 5.2% |
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10
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Find the love of my life | 4.3 |
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11
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Find a better job | 4.1% |
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—
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Other | 13.8% |
Here are a few more interesting stats:
| Percent of Americans who usually make New Year’s Resolutions | 41 % |
| Percent of Americans who infrequently make New Year’s Resolutions | 17 % |
| Percent of Americans who absolutely never make New Year’s Resolutions | 42 % |
| Percent of people who felt they were successful in achieving their resolution | 9.2 % |
| Percent who have infrequent success | 48.4 % |
| Percent who never succeed and fail on their resolution each year | 42.4 % |
| People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions |
What is most important here is that last statistic.
“People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions”
While all of your friends claim that resolutions are useless and made to be broken, you can share this statistic with them. But more importantly, remember it for yourself. People with a plan tend to succeed better.
Why is today the worst day for New Years Resolutions?
If you haven’t guessed it already, I’ll let you in on the secret. Today, the second Thursday in February is the most common day for people to stop achieving their New Years resolutions.
What can you do about it?
Get emotionally connect to your goals. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to get started, but this won’t teach you how to properly establish and prioritize your goals. The more detail you can have the better off you will be.
With each goal you will want to answer these questions to a relevant level of detail (I have provided some sub-questions to get you thinking and to add to clarity):
- What do I really want with this goal?
- What does finished look like?
- What would success be with this goal?
- Why do you want this goal?
- I want you to want it so badly that you have an emotional connection to it. What emotionally connects you to this goal?
- What will happen if you achieve this goal (rewards)?
- What will happen if you don’t achieve this goal (pain)? Remember both the pain and the reward are required to stay highly motivated.
- What is your very first next step?
- If the answer is “I don’t know” then try putting down “discover my very first next step by working with coach” as an example
- What other actions will I want to take along this journey?
- What massive actions can I create to create a craving to achieve this goal and how will I celebrate every single step along the way?
- This is your plan of action
- What obstacles will come up?
- What things will get in the way of you achieving this goal? Mindset? Money? Habits? Disappointment? Failure? Success (yes, some people are afraid of this)?
- What can you or will you do if these obstacles come up?
- How will you overcome the obstacles?
- If the answer is “I don’t know”, then think about what your very first step could be to start to resolve the obstacle.
If you can’t do this on your own and you have tried year after year and are still disappointed by your results, you might consider scheduling a strategy session with a coach where you can explore your goals. At Change My Life Coaching we have three programs one is a Get Motivated, Stay Focussed one day workshop program, you can ask us about this. The second is to Discover Your Top Three Motivators. And, the third is to complete a 3-month Best Year Yet: Goal Achievement one on one coaching program with your coach (which all starts with the strategy session).
We tend to be really good at setting and planning, but exploring the obstacles or following through on finishing our goals tends to be problematic. Everyone is a self-starter, but not enough of us are self-finishers. You must be a self-finisher to achieve your goals. In my own life I always accomplish my goals, some of them take years but I never give-up… at least not like I used to. Giving up is actually much harder on our mental state of mind than actually finishing the goal… but when we are in the middle of it… in the middle of wanting to give up, it never feels easier to finish the goal.
Christopher is the CEO and Founder of Change My Life Coaching — a fast growing whole-life coaching company, and the only one of it’s kind. He is also the author of “Go Beyond Passion: Discover Your Dream Job”. Christopher spent 15+ years working in the corporate world with a plethora of industries and companies. His focus was primarily in planning, strategy, and leadership of change management and communication. Christopher is a Certified Master Coach Practitioner (CMCP), trainer and facilitator, and a passionate public speaker who truly cares about the success of each and every single person he comes into contact with. You can reach him at [email protected].
