Forget Resolutions—4 Secrets to Making Changes

If I asked you what the most frequent New Year's Resolutions are, you'd probably nail it in one try.

Save more money. Avoid more debt. Eat healthier. Lose weight. Exercise more.

Yep. Those are resolutions are also the ones that usually fade away before the month of January ends.

Resolutions may be a tradition, but making a resolution or a goal doesn't necessarily equal change.

So what's the secret to making lasting changes?

Four Secrets to Making Changes

1. Make a decision to change.

How do you do that? Literally say to yourself, "I decide to eat smaller portions at meal times." Or, "I decide to write 2,000 words every day." Every change starts with a conscious decision of "I will no longer do X. I will do this new thing."

2. Take action immediately, no matter how small, to work toward that change.

Consciously think of your decision to change and figure out 1 thing you can do immedidately, that if done every day, will bring about the change.

3. Every day take an action to work toward the change.

4. Then write up the most important plan you've ever created.

Sit down with a pen and a journal or notepad or open a document on a device. You will now prepare a plan of attack. You are the general in the battlefield of your life.

You know what you want to change. You've decided to make that change. You've taken an action to change already. Now think about all the steps that must be taken from now until next year when you want to have made that change.

What do you have to do every month? Break that down into what must be done every day.

Takeaway Truth

Stop doing the same old thing that doesn't work. Try a new way to make changes.