I was talking to my banker. He shared that he took a class on intentions and learned some interesting statistics. One that 75% of people make the SAME resolution for ten years without achieving it (I haven’t found this written so am not able to cite it). I found a few more here, that only 8% were successful in achieving their goal, younger people in their 20s tend to follow through more than people over 50, and that 6 months after a resolution only 46% are still going strong. Another thing I have heard many times is that “people who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions.” I have also heard that writing it down and telling someone is even more powerful.

I want you to be in that percentage of people who attain their goals. And I want you to set yourself up for success. A couple of things:

1. Limit your goals to 3. The more you have the more unfocused you can be. Focus and succeed, you can always add more later.

2. Write them down and tell someone who you will be accountable to. Share with someone who is supportive (vs critical or doesn’t believe that you will accomplish this or anything else in  life).

3. Take a small step toward it every day. I talked about this in Intentions. A tiny step that is easy to do.

4. Don’t beat yourself up if you step away from your goal. Read more here. Recommit and move on. You can always step back on the path.

Set yourself up for success. Homework, do the above steps.

Photo curtesy of scottchan at freedigitalphotos.net