New Year's Resolutions

"If you think New Year’s resolutions are silly, ineffective rituals that don’t bear fruit, think again. A study of people who set New Year’s resolutions versus a control group of people who intended to change at some later point, showed a significant difference in goal success in the year following their contact with researchers. Fully 46% of resolvers were successful at achieving their goals – primarily weight loss, exercise, and smoking cessation – versus only 4% of the nonresolvers. The signs of success among the resolvers included self-efficacy of change, self-efficacy of maintenance, and readiness to change. The nonsuccessful resolvers used more self-reevaluation, wishful thinking, self-blame, and minimization of threats to their efforts to reach their goals."

"Another particularly interesting, and unintended part of the study, revealed that 54% of the people contacted who did not wish to achieve goals moved from contemplation to action with just three brief phone calls in four weeks from the researchers. Imagine what some phone calls to a trained coach would result in as far as resolutions!"

Why not get started now? Download this form and use it to plot your biggest goals for the year, followed by the benchmarks for achievement, and the goal completion dates. And then, when you’re feeling particularly bold, help yourself to “100 Things to Do Before I Die,” which will help you play even bigger in the game of life.

Don’t forget – a coach can be the best investment in making any and all of these dreams come true. Give it a try – you won’t regret it! - Caroline Miller

(Norcross, J. C., Mrykalo, M. S., & Blagys, M. D. (2002). Auld Lang Syne. Success predictors, change processes, and self-reported outcomes of New Year’s resolvers and nonresolvers. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 58, 397 – 405.