5 Strategies for Maintaining Your New Year’s Resolutions

With February just beginning the thought of sticking with your New Year’s resolutions might sound as appealing as scraping wallpaper off of drywall. It’s understandable why: The vast majority of people make and break their resolutions within a few weeks’ time. They fall back into their old ways, and they convince themselves their resolutions were too hard to keep anyway.

You don’t need to be part of the vast majority. In fact, 2012 can be the year that you separate yourself from the masses and keep every resolution you make.

Here are five ways to help you stay on track:

1. Set realistic objectives.

You probably can’t change jobs, launch a nonprofit organization, revamp your kids’ parent-teacher organization and start a community garden all in one year. You can always keep certain goals on the back burner, but chunk down your goals into just a few that you can realistically meet within a year’s time.

For longer-term goals, such as how to plan for retirement, choose a few to-do items that get you closer to your goals. For example, you can commit to putting more money in your 401(k) and creating a retirement planning guide with your financial planner. Establish time frames that are believable to you, and monitor your progress regularly.

2. Get an accountability partner.

Find someone who has similar goals with whom you can check in frequently. If you want to run a marathon, find a running partner and schedule regular runs. You’ll be more likely to show up for a run if you know someone is waiting for you. Keep track of your progress together, and share the results of your training.

3. Establish a reward system.

Even small rewards will help to keep you motivated. The reward should be tied directly to the goal. So, if you make an extra few hundred bucks in your business, rather than going on a spending spree or blowing every extra dollar on a latte, put some of that money in a savings account that will let you save up for a larger purchase. Post a picture of the item on your refrigerator. You’ll stay motivated to obtain that reward and will work that much harder to get it.

4. Revisit goals as needed.

Your goals may shift with the economy, life changes such as a new home or a new baby, a big move or other key events. Revisit your goals every few months to be sure they still encompass everything you hope to get out of life. Make any necessary tweaks to ensure you achieve the desired outcome.

5. See yourself succeeding.

Use your imagination to visualize yourself with your goals realized. Get a journal and log your thoughts and feelings about your accomplishment. Post photos of images that symbolize your success. Mentally associate with people who have what you want — not the naysayers who doubt your potential.

Bit by bit, you can meet all the goals you set forth in 2012. As long as you commit to specific action steps, you’ll not only keep your New Year’s resolutions, but also finish the year better off than when you started it.

Felicia Gopaul helps consumers understand how to plan for retirement, save for college and plan for the future. With insightful articles and advice featured at FeliciaGopaul.com and College Funding Resource, she offers easy-to-understand tips for consumers seeking better, smarter ways to manage their finances. As part of her New Year’s resolutions, Felicia will be sticking to a new fitness plan, reading motivational books and spending plenty of quality time with her daughters.

Setting SMART Goals for Weight Loss

Goal setting is an essential drive of our life and an important factor of motivation. Some people consider it as the fuel of our daily and everyday living. This becomes even more important when the goals are set by us, thus transforming us to self-driven individuals.

One of the goals set by millions of people every day is the loss of weight. Our goal should be the loss of weight that can be achieved through a healthy way of living and this can be definitely achieved by setting SMART goals.

SMART Weight loss goals

Setting goals is an art. In order to see the best results, the goals must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely, SMART. The weight loss goal cannot be an exception to this rule. Following the SMART guidelines enables us to achieve our goals, feel happy and repeat the exercise setting higher and more ambitious goals.

How can a weight loss goal be SMART?

In order to explain the idea let us assume that at the end of the summer period after a lot of abuse, you have gained 11 pounds and you are now 187 lbs. You want to lose 11 pounds, this is Specific. You do not state I want to lose weight. Can you Measure the goal? Yes, you can. Every Monday morning you get on your scale and measure your weight, noting it down on a board so that you can easily see it. Is it Attainable? This depends by when you want to lose those 11 pounds. If you say by tomorrow this is impossible, if you say in a month almost impossible but if you say by next summer, that is in 8 months then this is achievable and attainable by anyone. It is at the same time Realistic because 11 pounds out of 187 is 6% of your weight but if you were 100 lbs then 11 lbs would have been 11% of your weight, which is less realistic. Surely, this goal is Timely. It should be completed in 8 months for a specific reason.

You have set your SMART weight loss goal and now you need to monitor it and ensure that you are within this goal. Since a goal cannot be achieved once in a big chunk, it has to measured and monitored so that we achieve it in small but steady increments. Therefore, we measure our weight, week after week and we record the readings in our computer or a board where we can see and monitor the progress.

Healthy Living

Once we set our weight loss goals, we have to find the way to meet our targets through healthy living. By healthy living, we mean taking care of what we eat and by being physically active. The tools we have in our disposal are no other than a natural diet and exercise.

What is a natural diet? A natural diet consists of fresh fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, whole grain and cereals. Other foods like low fat dairy products and fish should be consumed many times a week, white meat in less frequency and red meat a few times a month. A natural diet is not restrictive but rather selective in the sense that you have to select what you eat and in normal quantities rather than restrict whole food groups from your daily meals.

Exercise: You cannot live healthy without exercise. Daily, or almost daily, physical exercises like walking for about 30-45 minutes a day is necessary. You should stand up and leave the couch for a couple of hours per day and deal with activities that keep your muscles moving. This is the only way to burn calories but refresh your spirit at the same time.

Do not forget that it is important to have a healthy body but it is equally important to have a healthy mind. There are many ways to get active and this is not limited to joining a gym but you can do sports (basketball, football etc) or engage into other outdoor activities alone or with friends.

Finally, do not forget that having a healthy weight is not only good for your appearance and health but is important for your self-esteem and confidence.

Author’s Bio

Alex writes about the Mediterranean diet for a long time. His latest article includes a Mediterranean diet plan for weight loss.

Definition of Goal Setting: How to Super-Power Your Goals

The Definition of Goal Setting is pretty self-explanatory – it is the process of deciding what you want (or setting a goal) and figuring out how to achieve it.

We all have goals, right? Well… actually… not exactly…

We have plans. We plan to make more money in a few years, we plan to find a better job, we plan to go on vacation in Europe and we plan to start a family when the time is right.

But all these are not goals. They are ‘wishes’, ‘desires’, or maybe ‘plans for the future’ at best.

Even those of us, who are familiar with the concept and definition of Goal Setting often set false goals for ourselves. This is actually one of the main reasons why only 10%-15% of people who have the motivation and skill to succeed, consistently achieve the results they desire.

Whether you are new to Goal Setting or consider yourself a pro, I urge you to take a few minutes and check if your goals are lacking some important characteristics or if they can be made more powerful and more effective.

Is Your Goal:

1. Challenging?

Make sure that your goal is challenging enough to motivate you, yet not too hard so that it discourages you before you have even started.

2. Specific?

How clear are you about what you want? If you were to share your goal with me, would I be able to picture it without asking any other questions?

3. Believable?

Are you confident enough in your abilities and your chances of success? Does your goal sound do-able to you?

4. Motivating?

Do you feel inspired by your goal or is it just something you would not mind having?

5. Limited in time?

Does your goal have a specific deadline, so that you can measure your progress along the way? In my practice, many people confuse goals with ongoing habits (e.g. “waking up early”, “going to the gym twice a week”). If your goal is based on something you have to do regularly for the rest of your life, you are setting yourself up for sure failure.

6. Enjoyable?

It is much easier to succeed at something that you enjoy doing, rather than at something that you have to force yourself into.

7. Written down?

Writing your goals down instantly makes them feel more tangible, more urgent and more desirable.

8. Breakable into smaller action steps?

Can you identify a number of steps that will take you from where you are now to where you want to be?

9. Easy to visualize?

Our mind thinks in pictures and, therefore, it is hard for our mind to focus on something like “tons of money”, “a beautiful body” or “a hot-looking date”. Make sure that when you think about your goal you can picture it up to the smallest detail.

10. Backed-up by a support team?

At times when your confidence wavers, is there anyone who can encourage you to stay on track and keep on moving forward?

Why You Don’t Need To Include Change In Your Goal Setting!

Many people fail with their goal achievement, because they hope that simply setting a goal is enough – that once you have set a goal, the rest will magically happen without any action or any change. In this article I’m going to examine this by explaining the only time you can set goals without including change…

The fact is, the only way you can set goals without including change is to set a goal of ‘keeping everything the same’.

That may seem obvious, churlish even, but it’s a hugely important point which can be pivotal to whether you succeed or fail with your goals. If you set your goal as ‘keeping everything the same’, then you won’t have to change anything to achieve it, right?

After all, we all know that to keep repeating the same actions will keep bringing the same results. The trouble is, life will come along and throw a spanner in the works, and that spanner can be classed as ‘unexpected change’.

So, even if you did set a goal of changing nothing, of remaining in the safe and comfortable status quo, it’s unlikely to work in the long term, because life *will* throw change at us. It really is a case of when, not if.

That’s introduced the 2 points I want to make with this article, so let’s look more into what practical steps you can take to incorporate them into your goal setting…

Start small

Armed with the knowledge that change is essential in the achievement of goals, if we are afraid of change at the outset, it’s important how we phrase that change in our plan.

In the goal setting stage, when you lay out the steps you will take to get you from where you are now to where you want to be, most if not all of those steps will bring change. Although some of them may be massive changes, lots of those will be a way down the road, and some of the first steps you need to take will be small ones.

Make the small ones the priority!

Don’t worry about the big ones down the road – they will come in due course, but they won’t come at all unless you make the small changes to start with. So, don’t focus on big changes, focus on the small ones, as this will massively reduce the fear factor which stops so many people dead in their tracks.

In your written plan of action, look at the first step, and then break that step down as far as you can, into as many smaller steps as you can. Each time you do this you are reducing the size of the change you need to accept.

Accept the inevitability of change

Change happens to us whether we want it to or not. The physical ageing of our bodies is a good example of this, but other examples will come as a complete surprise.

By definition, those surprise changes cannot be planned for in advance, but you can develop your way of reacting to change, and a good exercise for this is to look to your past.

In the majority of cases, things we feared never ended up being as bad as we thought they would, and reminding ourselves of this is very helpful in developing an acceptance of change.

Take your pen and paper, and write down 3 examples of your past experiences which were not as bad as you had thought they would be. Three examples, and they must be from your own experience.

Writing them down will help to drive them home as memories you can draw on for support. It won’t be hard to think of 3 examples, and in fact once you start you will probably end up with a whole list.

Combine two steps for maximum results

So to sum up, remind yourself with your own experiences that change is rarely as bad as it may appear beforehand. Although it would be naïve to suggest that all change is nice, it certainly is true that most of the time change is not awful – a big difference.

You can combine this with focusing on small changes in your goal setting plan. If you use both these exercises, you move from someone who reacts to inevitable changes that life brings, to someone can ride those changes.

There is more though – you will also move to someone who takes control of change by making them yourself, steering them to your own purpose, and that’s a powerful foundation to drive some serious goal achievement!

So although it might be nice to think we don’t need to include change in our goal setting, that is a limiting mindset, and it must be accepted that change is a key element to the whole process.

Gordon Bryan is a UK writer about goal setting who has followed a powerful formula for over 25 years. He is passionate about sharing it with others, and reveals it in his free 8 Step Goal Achievement Formula.

Behind The Scenes of Achieving Goals

I feel that these days anyone can learn how to set goals. There are countless books, and even more articles on the web, teaching people how to set goals, and pretty much any kind of goal. Whether it is a personal goal or a team goal, a health goal or a personal development goal, an effective goal or an attainable goal. If you’ve read up on, or just know about setting goals, then you probably noticed my last thought ended with two aspects that every goal should incorporate. But setting goals is a whole other topic. And I do not want to talk about that. I want to talk about actually achieving the goals you set!

Sure, setting effective goals is important to achieving them, but there is more to achieving goals than just setting great goals. Think about it, if all it took was setting the ?perfect goal? to achieve your goal, everyone would be exactly who they want to be and have exactly what they want. Unfortunately, it takes more than just setting that goal to achieve it, it takes work. Hard work. And that hard work is exactly what is behind the scenes of achieving goals. So let’s talk about it.

Achieving goals takes hard work in the four core aspects of life: mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects. Let’s discuss the first two individually:

Mental

This is where effective goal setting comes in. If you set a goal you do not believe in, or do not feel you can achieve, or do not really believe in, then your not going to achieve it. But that isn?t all. Even if a goal seems achievable when you set it, over time it may seem to be unreachable. Personally, I’ve been trying for two years to lose all of the sixty pounds I put on over 2007 and 2008. I started 2009 at 240 pounds, peaking at the end of 2008 at 245 pounds.

Over the last two years, I’ve slowly and naturally taken that weight off through changing my diet, exercising regularly, and just doing a better job all around in take care of myself. I just got back to 180 pounds this week. I was stuck at 185 pounds for months, and was about to give up on those last five pounds. Mentally I was worn down, and lost hope. Then I took some time, thought things through, and mentally recovered and then hit it hard. Staying mentally strong is just as hard as anything else, but its crucial to success.

Physical

It does not matter if your goal is a physical goal, like losing weight, or getting in better shape, or if it is a goal to get a promotion at work; if it?s a goal, the state of your physical being is crucial. Take the example of getting a promotion at work. If you are not taking care of your self physically, you are going to be more prone to illness, and having to take a lot of time off work as ‘sick’ days is not appealing to upper management. Or what if it’s not even that, but rather you simply just do not fit the physical standard needed to perform your daily tasks, or the daily tasks of the promotion you desire.

Ultimately, taking care of your self physically is crucial. A healthy, strong you is much more desirable than a sick, weak you. My recommendations for always being capable of the hard work demanded physically, and the three simple principles I strive to live by everyday are as follows. First, eat healthy. If you want to be healthy and alive, eat food that is alive. Eat fresh fruits and veggies, along with food you prepare, and avoid the processed junk.

Second, exercise. Just get active in some way. Start small, and build up. Third, unleash the full potential of your body. I personally see a chiropractor. Others prefer acupuncture or massages. I personally feel the difference, and see the difference when I am well adjusted. Some call me extreme, but I have a Folsom chiropractor for when I’m home, and a Honolulu chiropractor for when I’m in Hawaii. They are that important to me, that I always have one I can go to.

Ryan Chaffin is an Internet fanatic and loves anything technology, Internet, and social media related along with sports and health & wellness. Ryan believes in achieving your fullest potential. You can also find Ryan on Twitter (@ryanchaffin).

Best Online Tools for Goal Setting

As the New Year approaches, we think about the resolutions we are going to make. These goals help us start our new year with a determination to change or grow. Whether we vow to lose weight, save money, or quit smoking, it’s nice to have a little help to organize ourselves and keep track of where we are on our way to fulfilling our resolutions. The Internet is full of tools that can help us organize ourselves.

Fitday.com

While losing weight and getting in shape it’s very important to document progress. Fitday.com allows you to document all calories you ingest (with a built-in calorie counter), your exercise, and your weight. It also has a tool that allows you to input your weight loss goal. Along with the standard tools for getting in shape, it has a journal and a place to document mood. The site is free to join with a paid premium membership option.

Mint.com

Let’s face it, budgeting is a pain. When faced with a pile of credit card bills, bank statements, and loan bills, it seems like an enormous amount of paper to wade through and make sense of. The free website mint.com allows you to compile all your financial information in one place. This user friendly site turns your budgeting data into easy to read graphs. The graphs make it easy to quickly see where your money is going and what you can cut out of your budget to save money. This safe site also provides information to help you lower your cost of living, stay on budget, and pay off debt.

Quitnet.com

For many, quitting smoking is a yearly goal. You may have tried to quit before but failed. With many resources this site can help you to snuff out the habit for good. A wizard will lead you through setting up a date to quit, what sorts of pharmaceuticals (gum, patches, and prescriptions) you will be using, and how fast or slow you want to cut back, and ultimately quit. The top of the page states how much money you will save and how long quitting could prolong your life based on how much you smoke and for how long. Chat rooms, quitting buddies, and community boards help to make sure you don’t go it alone. While the cartoons throughout the website are cheesy, and almost childish, the site maintains an upbeat feel and a sense of humor to help you through the rough transition.

Joesgoals.com

Sometimes you don’t want to just work on changing one part of your life, but many. Joe’s Goals has two tools to help you pick goals and keep on track as you work toward them. The site is very plain, but the tools are simple to use. The tracker is a calendar labeled with positive and negative behaviors. A click in the box beside a positive behavior marks it with a green check; beside a negative behavior a click makes a red x. The checks are worth one point and the x’s are worth a negative point. The points are totaled, showing a score for the day. The site also offers Joe’s Logbook, which is a calendar in which you can write your progress toward goals. Using Joe’s Goals and Joe’s Logbook together can help you to set and work toward both small and large goals.

Nicole Rodgers has been blogging about health advice for 5 years. She is currently contributes to several blogs such as free insurance quote.

Mindful Goal-Setting for the New Year 2011

With New Year’s just around the corner, it’s time to start working on those resolutions. You know – your New Year’s resolutions that you’ll do for about three weeks before finding them inconvenient and forgetting about them. Yeah. It happens to the best of us. But for this year, let’s look at setting goals with a stronger spiritual awareness around them. With spirituality, you are working to resolve things at their root cause.

So many New Year’s resolutions fail because they’re only working on the superficial levels. Your goal may be to lose 50 pounds, but if you don’t understand why you eat the way you do and what really needs to be healed, you’ll fail again and again at that goal. It’s not because of lack of determination in many respects; it’s about lack of understanding and awareness.

So with this article, let’s work on growing your awareness, finding goals that you can achieve, and building off of those successes.

Be More Mindful with Your Food

Dieting and weight loss are HUGELY popular New Year’s resolutions. But changing your diet without changing your mindset is ultimately pretty futile. Either that or the changes you get are temporary. Instead of trying to fit your body’s nutritional needs to someone else’s dietary structure, how about learning about what your body actually needs?

Start with this simple goal: Take one meal a day to be mindful of your food. That means eating slowly. Really savor the flavors. After eating, see how your body feels. Repeat this every day. You may start to be surprised at what foods are making you feel good and what don’t make you feel good. This alone will start to shift your relationship to your food and may create a natural weight-loss program according to what your body truly needs.

Take Up a New Exercise That’s Fun

Another really popular New Year’s resolution is to get fit. It goes hand-in-hand with weight loss, but it usually means that people end up doing some really intense and excruciating exercises for three weeks and then totally burning out. So, choose something that is fun for you. If it’s fun, you’ll keep doing it. And if it’s fun, in many respects that’s aligning with what your body likes to do. There’s no doubt that if you’re really out of shape, everything will feel difficult initially. But when you find something that you genuinely enjoy (like swimming, for instance), it’s easier to work through the hard parts.

The spiritual aspect of all this really is coming into alignment with what your body needs. This isn’t about achieving a body image. When you do that, you’re enforcing an image upon yourself that probably isn’t true for who you are. There’s a whole level of pain just in doing that. There’s so much pain in trying to be what you’re not. So let that go. And just have fun.

Sleep, Relax, and Turn Off the Engine

In our go-go-go society, you always feel like you have to be doing something. But that’s burning people out left and right. If you never stop to really let go and rest, you’re getting angrier, crankier, more frustrated, more tired, and more depressed every day. Your whole being needs to recharge. This is why ensuring that you have time for adequate sleep and relaxation is so important. If you’ve been holding off on taking vacation time, set a goal to take that time this year. Set a goal for at least 15 minutes a day of relaxation or meditation. You could also set a goal for at least 8 hours of sleep. I know you’ve got a lot going on, but you aren’t serving your job, your family, or yourself any better if you’re always deprived.

Choose one or all of the above goals, and then keep a journal about how you’re feeling as you keep up those practices. Sure, not every day will be perfect, but over time, you may begin to feel more energy and more overall peace in life.

Practical Spirituality and Goal Setting

As with anything that I teach around spirituality, it’s about being practical. Hopefully, these practical goals will help you to feel a little better, a little more aware of yourself, and a little stronger for the New Year.

Jim Tolles is a spiritual teacher, healer, and writer. He blogs regularly at www.spiritualawakeningprocess.com. You can also find him under the screen name IveFoundit on Twitter and Stumbleupon.

Why You Should Keep Your Goals to Yourself

Often when we resolve to do something or achieve a goal, we are naturally prone to telling our family and friends about it.  There is, however, much evidence which advises to do the contrary.  That is – that we should in fact keep our goals to ourselves, at least around people who are absolutely not concerned.

Whereas this may seem counterintuitive, let me list some reasons why keeping your mouth shut might be a good idea if you want to stay motivated.  And no, having your friends hold you up to your goals turns out not to be very effective.

Can you live with failure?

Failing to achieve a goal which everyone expects you to achieve may have bad effects on your image.  Depending on the type of your goal, you might be remembered as the one who doesn’t stick to their word or resolution.  You know very well that talking about weight loss will help but by stretching your wrinkles.  But if you keep talking about it for too long without actually doing something about your weight, you will attract less and less attention and credibility.

If you want to maintain your face, just talk about the little successes which you have achieved on the way.  Have you been to the gym three times last week?  Tell your friends about that, don’t tell them that you’re planning to go five times next week.  This will bring you satisfaction from what you have already done and will motivate you for the next round.

Apart from risking your own failure, you are also risking that someone will try to beat you to your goal.  While this is not necessarily a bad thing in the weight loss category, starting up a promising business might be a worse scenario.  Don’t let others steal your thunder or your customers by beating you at your own game.

This is not to say that you should not network or seek advice.  Just try to talk about your achievements in vague terms – that will still leave a lot of space for you to brag once you have finished.  You will keep people interested and you will keep yourself interested in completing your tasks, anxious to do the unveiling.

What’s best is that if you indeed succeed, you will be able to enjoy your accomplishment fully with everybody else and nobody will have any reason to doubt your skills.

Why make your goals painful

Both Dan Ariely and Derek Sivers are ready to explain to you that telling anybody about your goals is simply a bad idea.  There has been extensive research done in this field indicating that telling others about your goals has a strong psychological effect on the one who speaks.

By sharing with others what you want to do, you are effectively living through the experience of having done it and you probably feel like your audience’s reaction to your announcement is the same as if you had already finished. Therefore, you are less motivated to complete the task and, well, experience the same reaction again.  This makes you a little more laid back and not even aware of your newly acquired comfort.

That is why, in a single experiment, a group of randomly selected people was asked to pick a task that they would like to accomplish.  Everyone in the experiment resolved to undertake a specific task, but only one half of the subjects was asked to share their goal with others in the room.  Everybody started working on their tasks under the supervision of the researchers.

On average, those who shared their goals with others gave up working (in favour of resting) much earlier, not pushing as hard to finish what they resolved. What is even more concerning, though, is the fact that the “sharers” also felt much better about the status of their task.  They felt that they were much closer to accomplishing it and were much less likely to resume working on it anytime soon.

To partially offset the negative effects of telling others, there is a simple strategy.  (Remember that it is always best not to tell, but just in case you were forced to…)  Derek Sivers suggests that if you must tell someone about your goal, try to include how much work there is still involved in achieving it successfully.

I suggest that you mention having to meet all these people and exert all this effort, and, most importantly, that it is not a done deal by any means. Only if you keep in mind the possibility of failure and the fact that your success is not for granted can you stay focused on the task at hand.  Keep yourself on your toes and make sure others know about it.

Epic fail

That is why I am often surprised by hearing that many Central European countries have this custom of celebrating their high-school graduation in the winter, half a year before they actually take their final exams.  Considering all we have learned right now, it seems that moving the celebration until after the exams might have extensive (positive) implications on the performance of the students during their last semester.

Conclusion

Remember, while we are indeed social animals, we have to make sure that we are using our social features and qualities in the right way to propel us, to fuel our motivation, and to help us achieve our goals more easily.  If you must talk about your goals, talk only about that which you have really achieved so far.  Try not to mention what you are going to do and, if you must discuss the
future, mention all the painful details, kilometres and meetings which lie between you and your goal.

It is OK to tell your calendar what you need to do, but it may be counter-productive to show your calendar to others.

Content prepared by Julie Kinnear, an experienced Toronto real estate agent and an advocate of all things green.

How To Achieve Your Weight Loss Goals

Losing weight is a big challenge today because most of the food we eat comes from fast food (aka junk), TV dinners, and delivered by a pizza boy. We are all living a busy schedule and this leaves no time to go to the gym or take care of our self and body. The sedentary lifestyle has become a nasty habit and technology has stolen every bit of physical activity from our life; emails instead of personally talking to a friend, cars instead of walking two blocks to the mall, and elevators instead of going up the stairs.

Yes, you can lose a couple of pounds by doing workouts and eating low-calorie foods for a week, but how long will you stay this way? How long you think you can beat the system and live a healthy life? Unfortunately not for long. This is why you need to have a strategy, a proper mindset and a plan if you want to lose weight once and for good.

1. Make a list

Start by making a list of what you like and what you don’t like about yourself. You may write on your “Don’t like” section things like: “I don’t like that I weigh 150 pounds” and you can write in your “Like” section: “I like that I am a happy person.” You can keep updating this list as you progress and read it as you work towards your ultimate goal. This will encourage you to continue your fitness regimen so you won’t be listing anything on your “Don’t like” list.

2. Set a SMART goal

You certainly have a reason why you decided to lose weight. This could be due to appearance or health. A nice little strategy that can help you actually achieve your target is to set a SMART goal: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Bounded. For example “I want to lose 5 pounds in a month because I want to look good” is a goal that meets the above criteria.

3. Commitment and Consistency

Since losing weight is not easy, you must be committed on what you are doing. Say for example, a nutritionist gave you a low-calorie menu for a week and a fitness expert gave you a workout program for a week; this may sound like a tough challenge but if you commit into it, you will certainly lose weight. And if you continue doing this, it will help you maintain that desired physique permanently.
The problem I have seen on many people is their commitment to live a healthy life. They work very hard with their trainers and professionals to achieve a normal weight, but when they are on their own, they go back to their unhealthy lifestyle thus they gain weight again. Losing weight permanently is all about commitment and consistency.

4. Discipline

There are many temptations evolving around us that can have a negative impact on our weight loss efforts. You need a lot of willpower and self-discipline to stay unaffected. For example alcohol contains more calories than carbohydrates, this means that even if you work out several hours in the gym and eat less than what you usually do, drinking can cause “beer belly” and weight gain. A boys’ night out is definitely unavoidable; go out with your friends but remember to be disciplined enough to drink just an ample amount. And if you are thinking of taking drugs (diet pills) as a way to weight loss, consider it as signing a contract with failure. A healthy and permanent weight loss is definitely possible if you are only disciplined enough to live a healthy life.

5. Patience is a virtue

They say that “Patience is a virtue” and this is especially true when you want to lose weight. Getting positive results may take some time since there are a lot of factors that affect your progress and thus it is very important to have the required patience to make it until the end. There will be obstacles on your way but if you take it one step at a time there is no reason to justify failure.

6. Visualize your success

One of the secrets of successful people is that they can visualize their success. They are optimistic and positive thinkers and this gives them enough power to meet their goals. This technique can also be applied in weight loss; Think positive and visualize your new self after you lose weight. Imagine how would you feel and how different your life can be and try to keep this image in your head during the process.

7. Keep yourself motivated

Remember the “List” that was mentioned earlier? This list will motivate you to continue eating a balanced diet and exercise regularly. You can now crash out the “I don’t like that I weigh 150 pounds” on your “Don’t like” section and replace it with “I like that I only weigh a hundred pounds” and instead of “I like that I am a happy person” on your “Like” part, you can replace it with “I like that I feel happier now”.

The key to permanent weight loss is by conditioning your mind to withstand the pressures of maintaining the physique that you worked hard for; condition your mind that you are a beautiful person inside and out and that you deserve to live a longer and happier life.

Guest post by Alex Chris. Alex writes about weight loss topics for many years now. His main moto is that in order to learn how to lose weight you need to have self-discipline and willpower. Anyone can come up with a great weight loss plan or diet, the difficult part is to find the courage to actually implement it.

Goal Setting in Simple Words

Goals should be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-Oriented or Time-Sensitive.

They have definite tangible outcomes.

What are goals?

Goals are visions, outcomes, objectives or expectations. There are big goals and small goals. Say you have a goal like ‘I will save $100,000 or (a specific figure in any currency) in the next ten years.’ Sure, it is possible. To reach that goal, you need to find out how much you need to save in a year for the next ten years, how much in a month and how much everyday. You need to make sure that you have the income and the expenses that support your daily goal. If not, extend your time frame or try to increase your income, or reduce your expenses to meet your daily goal.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”…I read somewhere.

In a business, the executives develop the goals and communicated downwards. Involving all levels of organization enhances communication and increases commitment, dedication, involvement and motivation.

Write it down: It is very important that when you have a goal in your mind, INK it. If it is not written, it is not a goal. It is a dream, a wish and you assume no accountability to make it happen. Only when it is in the written form, it is a commitment, your mind will stay focused, and direct yourself towards the qualities of persistence, commitment and consistency to reach that goal.

Define/Specific: The goal should be specific. It is not, ‘I want to have lot of money in ten years”. What is ‘lot?’ Be specific, so you can divide further to reach daily goal. Goals must be concrete. Vague and ambiguous goals cannot be reached. Years ago, I wanted to buy a home and I was very specific – the price should not exceed $100,000, must have 3 bedrooms, and should not be more than ten miles from my work. After six months of intense search I found a condo fulfilling these conditions. When you’re specific you can narrow it down to exactly what you want, avoid all other distractions and proceed to accomplish it. Goals are specific measurable targets that are designed to clarify expectations, destinations.

Short term goals: Think of them as means to an end. When you have a short term goal aiming towards the long term goal, you see that you’re moving forward everyday. Short term goals eventually culminate to your long term goal because they are measurable. You can monitor the progress. What gets measured gets done. I remember my father had a budget goal and every night before he laid his head on the pillow, he would account for his daily expenses. He monitored it religiously. Goal setting also creates a discipline in you.

One step at a time the baby starts to walk. He doesn’t plan for a mile! Joggers and walkers start slow and go on increasing 15 min every two weeks. Slow and steady wins the race. We all know the story of’ the Hare and the Tortoise’. Keep at it. Don’t quit. “Inch by inch, it’s a Cinch’, said Loe Lionni, the famous children’s book author and a painter from Italy.

Realistic & Attainable: Goals must be realistic and believable. If you don’t believe you can achieve a goal, you won’t pay the price for it. Only when you believe you’ll choose to stay focused and do what you need to do to get it. When I was little, my brother would say, save a penny on the first day and double it daily and in a month you’ll be a millionaire, in fact you’ll have more than five million in 30 days.. This is mathematically fine but is not a realistic goal for a middle class person. First day a penny, second day 2 pennies, third day 4 pennies, fourth day 16 pennies, fifth day 32 pennies, sixth day 64 pennies, seventh day 128 pennies…do you get it? I could have tried for two weeks and repeated again for couple of times…

Goal should encompass are areas of life. Remember to set financial, academic, professional, physical, spiritual and relationship goals. Neither can you do one after the other nor can you get away without growth in another area.. All areas are interdependent. It will create a domino effect. In your life If you pursue higher studies when you’re working full time, make sure you spend few minutes a day with family members to avoid friction in relationship area. I would say balancing all areas of life an art of living. You should be able to achieve little bit of everything everyday.

In 2003, I made sure that I spent couple of hours a week with my old mother every week. It was important for me to spent quality time with her when she was old so that I don’t regret later. I was working long hours, going to school and still I inked an appointment with her every Friday evening and I remember she would look forward to that meeting. Now she is not in this world and I have no regrets. All areas need equal priorities. One is not more important than another. Do not compromise something for another. No goal is impossible.

Time or deadline: Define your goal and decide by when you want it. Deadline is important. We are inherently designed to set and achieve goals. Think about, when you wake up you have your own set of actions that you do like brush your teeth, wash your face, comb your hair, read newspaper or use computer, get to school or work and so on and so forth. You can call them chores, tasks, routine but these are daily goals, have become a habit and over the course of years they are on auto pilot.

On a holiday or weekends, you’ll not do as routinely as work days. Why? Because your brain is programmed to take it easy on holidays and there are no set deadlines. You wake up late, lethargic, may not do the routine things. Basically you slack, another word is relax, (it is ok to do it though) and then at the end of the day, you say ‘Time flies. Didn’t have time to do anything!!” is that true? But you had same number of hours on all days…

On the contrary if you need to attend a wedding or gathering on holidays, things get done and move on to the next goal, which is attend the wedding. This is a simple example.

Same applies to everything. When you have a deadline, you accomplish it. Definitely set up a time limit for your goal.. “Work expands with time” – said Cyril Northcote Parkinson.

Dream big, set goals, INK it and act on it with a definite deadline. You can achieve whatever you want. Nothing is stopping you from reaching your destination except the shackles that you put around you. Remember,

Goal + Timely Action = Desired Results