It’s that special time again: With the start of the New Year, many have decided to do it a lot differently and much better. On New Year’s Eve we make a lot of intentions: We want to eat less, do more sports and even change our diet to „totally healthy“. Unfortunately our intentions do not last long.
Intentions are like eels
The „Fresh Start Effect“ ensures that we smoked our last cigarette in the old year, banish sweets out of the house and sign up at the gym. Now it’s over with all the vice. The new year will miraculously improve. Unfortunately, a 2015 Forsa study gives little hope of success. 50 percent of respondents said that their intentions lasted more than three months, the other half were already exhausted after a while. Therefore, intentions disappear as quickly as they were made in everyday life – or as the French writer Alexandre Dumas (the younger) already knew „intentions are like eels – easy to grasp, but difficult to keep.“ Why is that and what can we change? Most of them lack determination. We know, who really wants something can do it. This is a reason why most intentions fail: the inaccuracy. „I want to lose weight“ is far too general. But who says I want to lose 5 pounds in two months, has a goal in mind. Here are three more tips on how to comply with your intentions:
1. Stay specific and realistic
Make a contract with yourself and write down exactly what intentions you have and when you want to implement them. Add the data to your calendar, for example „jog for half an hour on Sunday at 8 o’clock“. Please do not exaggerate right away, stay realistic. You do not have to run a triathlon. Let your smartphone remind you of the appointment. If you prefer a piece of paper, hang it up so that you trip over it every morning, for example, on the fridge if you want to lose weight. Maybe a bit frustrating in the morning – but it helps.
2. Use your imagination
What do you want to achieve with your intent? What does your life look like when you arrive at your destination? What will improve? For example, if you imagine that with less weight and more sport, you can make it easier to climb the stairs to your apartment without getting out of breath. Or that if you prepare well for a customer meeting in the future, you’ll get better deals. The imagination can also be used to look at your present situation. How does it look in a few months, if everything stays that way? Maybe you need to look for a ground floor apartment or new customers. So you can imagine your situation and get more motivation to implement the new intentions.
3. Reward yourself
Everyone must be aware that achieving a goal also takes time. Anyone who has done no exercise or little before now has to plan it in his everyday life and resist the lure of the couch. If you cannot do it on your own, you should always look for a partner to join in. And if you keep your intentions, then you can also be proud of yourself. Your reward is your health, the feeling of being fitter, or the money you earn because you are gaining more customers through your preparation. For example, you can book your dream vacation from the money. So reward yourself, so that you will not relapse again out of frustration.
By the way, there is a very nice solution for all pig dog lovers and intent abusers that is easy to keep up with – no intentions next year.
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