Skip your New Year’s resolutions and make these instead

When it comes to potential to make positive change in your life, which approach do you think would offer more potential – one that gives you a big hurrah once a year, or one that builds in a dozen focused opportunities throughout the year.

This New Year, turn that single-point scarcity into an abundance of change potential by making twelve New Month’s resolutions.

Those resolutions might all be related, building towards a larger goal. For example, if you want to lose weight, your January resolution might be to exercise at least three times a week, your February resolution might be to continue exercising while cutting out sugar, and March might involve continuing to build on those while eating the recommended amount of fruits and vegetables.

If you want to get a better handle on your finances, your New Month’s resolution for January might be to track all your spending. For February it might be to cut back on spending 10%. March might focus on taking the money you’re not spending and putting it into a savings account, and so on.

Or it might be a series of unrelated resolutions each month, giving you the stimulation of working towards something new. If even a percentage of those stick – let’s say half of them – you will have made more positive change than the average person who makes a single resolution in January first that fails by the end of the month.

It might even be the same resolution each month. This gives you twelve opportunities to build on it, rather than limiting yourself to that one big attempt (and then likely fizzle) at the beginning of the year.

If you are doing well with it, this gives you the opportunity to reward and reinforce your efforts. If you have fallen off track, it gives you the opportunity to get back up on the horse and start riding again.

52 New Week’s Resolutions

If you want to go really wild with it, try making 52 New Week’s resolutions. And as you do, explore ways to share your New Week’s resolutions adventures, like regular updates on Facebook, or a even a blog.

You might do these micro-resolutions in conjunction with the New Month’s resolutions idea (breaking the monthly resolutions into weekly chunks that support them). This gives even more potential for frequent reinforcement, as well as smaller periods of time for you to wander unchecked off track.

It’s also a great way to treat the coming year as a sampler platter for positive change. You can dip your toe in a wide variety of positive changes. When you find one that feels good, just keep doing it, while continuing to play with other weekly resolutions.

Parting thought

This New Year, ask yourself this question. “What is my positive change goal?” Is it to create changes of substance that stick, or is it to get high on the immediate, if temporary, gratification of committing to a wholesale change?

If what you really want is change that sticks, don’t limit yourself. Make it an adventure that has many opportunities along the way to add to, recalibrate, and build on the change you want to make.

You’ll thank yourself next New Year’s.

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