Nearly two-thirds of people who make new year’s resolutions will give up on them before the end of January. AWM explores why so many find it hard to stick to them, and what you can do to stick to them

The new year is the perfect time to make a fresh start and step forward to new beginnings. It’s a time when people are naturally keen to work on, develop and change aspects of their lives. We all want to make a ‘better version of ourselves.’ We all want to improve…and just like this year, most of us started off last year (and the ones before) with the highest of motivations and a list of plans. But how many of us have managed to keep resolutions that we have made over the years? Why are our best made plans just too difficult to keep, and why the difficulty in realising our intention?

Leadership Coach Pradip Gajjar shares three insights on how to really get a hold of your resolutions:

Improvement is whole person

First find out why you want a change. You can start at the gym without changing your diet, or you might enrol onto a course without clearing space in the diary. But just deciding on a change without planning for it will mean the new found goal just doesn’t work. The anticipated results won’t follow, and the practitioner will therefore quit from the pursuit. To make the connections between the various aspects of your life means you need to get to the core, the purpose, the why. Catch it, note it and refer back to it while defining the change you want to work on. This reference point is key.

Improvement is a conscious shift

If you don’t make the shift towards your resolution internally – consciously – the external won’t follow. Making a change means carrying through with emotion, intellect and thoughts to create the state you wish. Holding on to a habit won’t allow you to develop new one. Moving from something requires moving to something better, and for that every part of us has to be engaged in its cultivation. There will be relapse days and that’s fine. Just pick up again and focus on the why you want the change and invest yourself within it.

Improvement is progressive

We all want quick results but patience is the virtue. Patience is about endurance, the character of perseverance. With patience you can celebrate every bit of the progress you make. And putting in place accountability for our resolutions is essential. Set time-bound goals of your overall aim. It sets out a road map offering milestones and with it the confidence that progress is being made.

Thinking of your new year’s resolutions in this way gives it meaning, purpose and makes it relevant to you.