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Coco Warner ReportingSo, how many of you made a New Year's resolution-- and have already broken it? What if the secret to success is resolving not to make a New Year's resolution?
Richard Mellor: "Resolution is to get in shape as a family this year!"
Annette Wolff: "Fulfill my dream of taking a tap dancing class, but with little kids sometimes it's harder to do, so I took a beginning one last year, so my goal is to hopefully take more."
From tap-dancing to taking off unwanted pounds, one of the most popular New Year's resolutions has to do with health. That's why gyms typically see a big jump in memberships during January. But how many people, after eating one too many pieces of cake, heave a big sigh and think, 'oh well, there's always next year.'
The secret to success is don't call it a resolution!
Jennifer Tate, Franklin Covey: "Well, we say don't set new year's resolutions, instead set goals. The reason why? Most people on the first two to three weeks of the year, they've already forgotten about their resolutions and already moved on."
Can it really be that easy, just by NOT calling your resolution a resolution? Maybe, because the name change changes how you look at it.
Jennifer Tate, Franklin Covey: "How am I doing for this three week period? Then it's a little easier to comprehend, ok in three weeks I just need to lose one pound. That's not such a big goal-- whereas 50 pounds over a whole year is kind of hard to think about."
And the goal of any good planning system is to help you break down your goal into manageable chunks.
Jennifer Tate: "It may be a year long goal, but you've got steps in there that you've broken down that you can have dates along the way, so you can kind of benchmark that."
And helping you find a system for the benchmarking, that's Franklin Covey's business.
Jen Wayment, Franklin Covey: "And it becomes more than just something to track your appointments and tasks, it really helps you define the focus you want in your life and really the direction you want to go to help you achieve your goals."
The folks at Franklin Covey have several suggestions for helping you reach your goal. First of all, only set one or two major goals for the year, write them down, break them down into a manageable sizes, set realistic deadlines, track your progress, reward yourself when you reach set benchmarks-- and don't give up if you have a slip-up.
