Why New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work…and How They Can

What do you want to say about your life one year from today? Can 2014 bring the change you want?

There is something magical about turning the calendar. We are going to change everything and next year is going to be amazing. We will lose our 10 pounds, make our first million and meet the love of our life.

Until January 2nd when reality sets in—our life is just the same as it was in December, except now we need to write a new year on our documents.

As a professional life coach, I specialize in guiding people through major life changes. I know it is possible to make changes and the new year is a great time to do it. We just have to do it in a certain way.

Here’s my latest article for elephant journal. Click to read it in its entirety!

What do you want to say about your life one year from today?
Can 2014 bring the change you want?

There is something magical about turning the calendar. We are going to change everything and next year is going to be amazing. We will lose our 10 pounds, make our first million and meet the love of our life.

Until January 2nd when reality sets in—our life is just the same as it was in December, except now we need to write a new year on our documents.

As a professional life coach, I specialize in guiding people through major life changes. I know it is possible to make changes and the new year is a great time to do it. We just have to do it in a certain way.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

Don’t set resolutions from a place of frustration.

Do decide what you want and get excited about where you are going.

Often, the desire for change comes from sheer annoyance with a certain area of our lives. We check the mirror and are disgusted by our shape, look in our checkbook and are frustrated by the balance or spend time with our mate and realize the relationship is far from what we want.

While frustration is where most of our desire to change begins, we want to quickly switch over to focusing on what we want because that will fuel our motivation when times get tough.

Stick with me here. When we are working on making changes in our lives, we need to do things differently. We need to change our game. But when the time comes to choose between our old way of doing things and our new way (like eating the healthy snack rather than the junk or getting up early to practice rather than sleeping in), we need to dig deep to keep ourselves on the positive road. We do so by remembering the good stuff, the new place we want to be.

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