It's February, Do You Know Where Your New Year's Resolution Is?
Author: Dr. David Nganele

Did you make a New Year's resolution? How is that coming along? If you are like most people, you made a New Year’s resolution but, by February, you found yourself losing steam.

I want to show you a simple and yet powerful technique that will jump start your resolution. Goal-setting experts have shown this to be very effective.

This three step process will take you may be all of 15 minutes. The steps are

1. The 1-3-5 or, what-why-how, step
2. The No-Excuse step
3. Repeat step 2

Step 1: The 1-3-5 or what-why-how step

In this step, You write one what, that is, what is the goal or resolution you want to achieve. Then you write three whys, that is, three reasons why you want to achieve that goal. Lastly, you write 5 hows, that is, five things to do to achieve the goal.

In writing the what, remember that a goal has to be specific with a deadline. So, you just can't say "I want to make more money". You have to write "I am making an additional 00 a month by June 30 2004. You just can't say I want to lose weight". You have to write "I am 30 lbs. lighter on April 15 2004. Realize that I use the present tense "I am" rather than "I will be". This is called living your goal. You have to see yourself already achieving that goal.

Then you write three reasons for why you want to achieve that goal. Without reasons to motivate you, you will not have the power to go on when you hit those inevitable rough patches.

The "how" represents the actions you will take to reach the goal. As Anthony Robbins, the famous motivational speaker says, what separates winners from losers is that winners take action on a continuous basis to achieve their goals.

Step 2: The No-Excuse step

In this step, you take the hows that you wrote in step 1 and order them from the easiest to get done to the most difficult.

So, you have number 1 as the easiest. You then do that task with a NO-EXCUSE policy. What this means is that you make a commitment to yourself to do that task, no matter what tries to get in your way. Do this until it becomes a habit or the task is completed. As an example, let's take the weight loss goal. You decided that the five things you needed to do were, joining or starting a support group, using a journal, doing routine exercises, listening to motivational tapes and engaging in proper nutrition.

You now rearrange the list to make number one the easiest, for example, using a journal, and then do that activity, no matter what until it becomes a habit. As you know, habits are formed through repetitions.

Step 3: Repeat Step 2

After you have developed the new habit, you move to the next action step on your list and start that one with the same no-excuse policy as you did with the first action. So now you have two actions going. When that becomes a habit, you move to the next action and do that until all five action actions have been completed or have become habits.

You will be amazed at what combining all these actions can do. You will achieve your goal in less time than you thought. But this assumes that you did set a realistic goal. It is said that there are no unrealistic goals, only unrealistic timelines.

Setting goals is fun, achieving them is even better.






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Dr. David Nganele is a New York Times-profiled health education expert who has written a number of books. He believes that "The More You Know, The Better You'll Live". On his site http://www.aboutdietplans.com he shows that by understanding how the body regulates weight, you will know the only clinically-proven way, outside of surgery,to lose weight and keep it off.

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