What are your new year’s resolutions? Do they look like the ones you’ve made last year?

Studies say that 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail. We are ambitious at the beginning of the year. We dump resolutions and stick to it for several weeks, and forget it.

What about mind mapping new year’s resolutions and making it actionable? Let’s identify the right resolution, make/track real progress, and achieve the goals.

January 19th is the Quitter’s Day, according to 2019 study conducted by the fitness app Strava because most New Year’s Resolution abandoned on that day.

Have you wondered maybe these resolutions are not the right resolutions for you? I’ve looked back on my resolutions last year which I failed 60% of them, and I’ve concluded 3 reasons below:

• It’s a resolution that I was told by others.
• The description is vague.
• I don’t have a realistic plan for it.

We’ve talked about SMART principle, a mnemonic acronym, giving criteria to guide in the setting of goals and objectives, when listing specific key results in OKR to achieve New Year’s Resolution. In fact, SMART also works for resolution settings.

Build A SMART Resolution with XMind

Specific

Make a concrete plan start with a specific goal. Goals like “lose weight” “healthy lifestyle” and “save money” are vague. Use mind maps to make your goal specific.

For example, lose weight is pretty vague here, so ask yourself several questions to make it more specific, and the goal will be: I want to lose 30 pounds in 6 months.

Measurable

Since we’ve already had a specific goal, and let’s record it on a mind map. It helps you to track behaviors, and also reinforce the progress. Use a timeline to record your actions and results.

Watch yourself getting to the goal step by step is promising. Don’t forget to give yourself a break, since self-restraint is hard.

Achievable

We’ve already had a specific goal, but 30 pounds in 6 months still sounds big for me. Break it down, and use positive word to make it achievable. Let’s set a small and positive goal for the first month:lose 5 pounds by doing regular exercises at the end of the month. That sounds not too big nor too fast.

For people who don’t have regular exercises before, it’s not realistic for starting HIIT in the beginning. Start exercising with your friends, family, or ask a trainer for advice.

Now we have a realistic and encouraging plans with doable steps, it’s always allowed to have some room for mistakes because unexpected hurdles or inevitable events occur.

Relevant

Keep in mind that the resolution is about you. It’s not created upon others’ expectations, or commanded by someone who is telling you to change.

“If you do it out of the sense of self-hate or remorse or a strong passion at that moment, it doesn’t usually last long,” said Dr. Michael Bennett, a psychiatrist and co-author of two self-help books. “But if you build up a process where you’re thinking harder about what’s good for you, you’re changing the structure of your life, you’re bringing people into your life who will reinforce that resolution, then I think you have a fighting chance.”

If you are not sure about it, use mind map to determine your goal. Here are some questions for reference.

Time-bound

Give room to mistakes, and also patience. Use the timeline we mentioned above, you can manage your time for small goals. Gradually, you will achieve the big goals, one step at a time.

Use marker to track your progress, and reward yourself once achieved a goal, no matter big or small.

That’s it for today. Download the mind maps template here and review your resolutions in a SMART way. Don’t be a quitter, and we are eagerly awaiting your success. 😊

Reference:

Mahan, Logan. “Why Your New Year's Resolution Already Failed.” InsideHook, 19 Jan. 2022.

“How to Make (and Keep) a New Year's Resolution.” The New York Times, The New York Times.