What to Do If Your Resolutions Have Already Failed

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Those of us who make resolutions at the beginning of the year feel like we start the year fresh and that anything is possible. So, what happens when week two or three rolls around and our resolutions have already failed? We can immediately feel defeated and like it’s not worth it anymore. But there is a way to work through that.

Don’t Lose Faith

What To Do If Your Resolutions Have Already Failed | Achieve Your Goals | #goalsetting #resolutions #tryagain

First, don’t lose faith. Hang on to the feeling that things will get better and that you will reach all your goals. Everyone has setbacks but the true test is what you do when you experience one. If you immediately shut down and decide that your goal will never work out then you will never succeed. You have to remain optimistic and continue dreaming.

Take a Step Back and Evaluate Your Resolutions

Sit back and look at each of your resolutions objectively. Ask yourself the following questions:

Why do I have this goal?
Is this something my heart truly desires?
What will I gain by achieving this goal?
What will I miss out on by not achieving this goal?
Are my reasons strong enough to help me follow through?

Your motivation is big part of your success. If your reasons for having this goal aren’t strong enough it will be really hard to achieve it.

For example, you may have a goal to lose weight so you can look good in a bathing suit. That might be a strong enough reason for you but, for a lot of people, it’s not. For a lot of people, it would be nice to look good in a bathing suit but it’s not as important as other things. A stronger reason might be your health. Perhaps you aren’t sleeping well because of the excess weight or your knees have started hurting. Maybe you are tired of getting winded while playing with your children or embarrassed that you need to purchase an extra seat on an airplane. The feeling of disappointing your children because you can’t play with them or having to deal with stares as you board the airplane can be much more motivating than simple vanity.

Make Adjustments

After re-evaluating your resolutions, you can then make adjustments. If your reasons aren’t strong enough, see if there are other real reasons that you need to achieve this goal that might be stronger. If you can’t find some other reasons, perhaps you need to set this goal to the side for now and focus on another one. Or, you may find that there is a goal associated with this one that has stronger reasons. For example, in the scenario where you want to lose weight to look good in a bathing suit, if you that isn’t strong enough and you can’t think of stronger reasons, then maybe your real goal is associated with this one. Perhaps it isn’t about losing weight but about feeling more confident. You may need a goal that has to do with increasing confidence first before the weight loss comes in.

If your reasons are strong enough then maybe your action plan to achieve your goal just needs to be tweaked. Your method may be overly ambitious like trying to lose 20 pounds in one month or learning how to play an entire piece of classical music within months even though you’ve never played piano in your life. You need to make sure your goal is realistic.

Further, you need to make sure you have broken your goal down into manageable chunks and steps. If your goal is to play classical music on the piano but you don’t know anything about playing the piano then you need to break it down into smaller steps like learning the keys, learning scales, playing simple songs, etc. When losing a large amount of weight, you might want to break it into sections of 10 pounds each or taking it a day at a time and just focus on meeting your calorie and exercise goal each day.

Adjustments are your friend and you may have to make many adjustments over the course of completing your goal so be flexible.

Try Again

Finally, after you have re-evaluated your resolutions and adjusted it accordingly, start going after it again. Many successful people have failed numerous times before eventually succeeding. The one thing they all have in common is they didn’t give up. They may have changed their method or tweaked the goal itself but they continued to try until they succeeded. I have an acquaintance in Arbonne that spent 18 months hearing “no” from everyone they talked to about starting an Arbonne business before hearing their first “yes”. They are now at the top of the success plan in the highest position you can achieve in the business. Her biggest piece of advice was to never give up and continue trying.

Failure is Not the End

A failure early on is not the end of your goals and dreams. It’s just the beginning. No one has reached their goals without some failures along the way. At least, no one I know. But how you handle those failures goes a long way towards success. You can do absolutely anything that you set your mind to. Especially if it is important to you. Never forget that.