It's that time of the year. The eggnog is
flowing, the party hats have been purchased,
and you're thinking about who you're going
to be kissing at midnight. Yes, it's just about
time for New Year's, 2015, and that means
one more thing: New Year's Resolutions.
New Year's resolutions are the goals you set
aggressively for yourself, only to fall off by
mid-January. I'm going to lose weight. I'm
going to exercise more. I'm going to network
more. I'm going to start that business. We've
all been there. The first, perhaps more
important step to actually achieving a goal is
to make it a SMART, metrics-driven goal. as I
wrote about last year at time time . But even
once you have a SMART, metrics-driven goal,
it's not easy to keep at it, day after day, and
week after week. In order to find out how
people do it, I asked successful members of
the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) , an
invite-only organization comprised of the
world’s most promising young entrepreneurs.
These are the 15 secrets they shared to
accomplishing your New Year's Resolution, or
any goal:
1. Make a Bet
It's easy to say
things you
"want to do,"
but when a bet
is placed on
your head for
following through, this outside motivation can
help you actually stick to the goals you set
for yourself. For a workout challenge I had
with my wife, my consequence for failing was
to rollerblade in a pink thong in South
Beach...Yes, a pink thong. I didn't fail.
– Chris Brisson , Co-Founder, Call Loop
2. Become
Accountable
It can be hard
to stick to a
resolution if
you go it alone,
whether it's a
business-focused goal or "hit the gym three
times a week." So get your significant other
or a friend to check in with you regularly.
That way you'll combine your own motivation
with not wanting to let someone else down,
and will hopefully stick to that resolution
throughout the year.
– Grant Gordon, President and CEO, Solomon
Consulting Group
3. Put It On
Your Calendar
I keep my New
Year's
resolutions by
thinking of
them a little
differently. Instead of a single yearly event, I
decide to make consistent changes and put
them on my calendar. For example, my 2006
New Year's resolution was to go to the gym
at least four times per week. I put it on my
calendar and I've been going to the gym for
the past eight years. In fact, now I'm up to
six times per week on average.
– Vladimir Gendelman, Founder and CEO,
Company Folders, Inc
4. Use the "Way of Life" App
I use the app
Way of Life to
keep track of
all of my daily
and weekly
goals. It's a
simple, intuitive
app that lets you track whether or not you've
met any given goal on any given day. The
only choices are green (success), red (failure)
or gray (skip). Over time, you can see graphs
and trends for each resolution or goal. It
adds accountability and a gamification
component to help keep you on track.
– Brittany Hodak , Co-founder, ZinePak
5. Put It In
Writing and
Post it Where
You will See It
I find the best
way to keep on
track with a
goal is to put it in writing and put it
somewhere you will see it. By having it right
in front of you, on a post it or on your smart
phone, you can easily keep yourself
accountable.
– Phil Laboon , President, Eyeflow Internet
Marketing
6. Assign it an Adjective
I love to make
my New Years
goals and
assign three to
four adjectives
that describe/
encompass the
way I want the year to look. So when it's
tough to remember each of the goals
specifically on a daily basis, it's easy to think
about these descriptors and how your life
would look/feel if those were true today. I
find this motivating to keep moving forward
in a positive direction.
– Darrah Brustein, Founder, Network Under
40 / Finance Whiz Kids
7. Go Public
Decide on what
you want to
change and tell
everyone. Tell
your friends,
family,
strangers and people you meet at the store.
The more you talk about it, the more others
are involved and know your goal, the easier it
will be to change.
– Bhavin Parikh, CEO and Co-founder ,
Magoosh Inc
8. Make
Commitments
Instead
I read a great
article about
commitments
by Chris
Freyteg. My favorite line was, “A resolution
may be the act of resolving or deciding on a
course of action, but a commitment can be
far stronger, because it’s a specific pledge,
promise or obligation.” The bottom line: Keep
it simple and you’ll actually be able to add it
your busy daily life.
– Nicole Smartt , Co-Owner/Vice President,
Star Staffing
9. Make It Easier Than Your Current Habit
People usually
pick the easiest
alternatives in
their day, so to
make your
resolution work,
make your new
task easier than an existing one. Want to eat
healthier? Throw away all the junk food in
your house and replace it with healthy snacks
and ban junk food in the house altogether.
Want to start running? Put your running
clothing by your bed each night so it is the
closest to you each morning.
– Charlie Graham , Founder & CEO , Shop It
To Me, Inc.
10. Have an
Incentive
I set myself
targets and
goals, and I
splurge/reward
myself after I
achieve them. That incentive motivates me to
not break my resolutions. On the other hand,
if I do break them I set punishments for
myself by taking something away. Make sure
that you're incentivized to keep on increasing
the positive feedback and canceling the
negative feedback.
– Ridaa Murad, Managing Partner, Christina
Ventures
11. Use the Streaks App
Streaks is an
app that helps
you create
habits. For
each of your
resolutions, you
can create a
calendar that allows you to "check" each day
that you do what you say you're going to do.
The goal is to maintain a streak. For
example, if you want to wake up by 6 a.m.
you would check each day that you achieve
that goal. The longer your streak, the more
likely you are to maintain that resolution.
– Natalie MacNeil, CEO, She Takes on the
World
12. Change
Your Internal
Vocabulary
I have a
strange diet
that is 90
percent meat
and vegetables (extremely low carb, low
fruit). The initial change was tough until I
changed my internal vocabulary from "I
shouldn't eat that pasta," to "I don't eat that"
or "that's not food for me." To me, they
aren't even food anymore and therefore
aren't tempting. This trick works with all
changes. "I don't sleep late," rather than "I
should get up now."
– Brennan White , Founder and CEO, Cortex
13. Get Down to Business
Treat your
resolution the
way you treat
your work.
Make plans, set
deadlines and
adhere to a
schedule. If you don’t meet your goals,
evaluate what went wrong and how you can
recover.
– Simon Casuto , Founder, eLearning Mind
14. Set Mini Goals
It's easy to set
a goal of to
lose weight or
stop smoking.
The problem is
our failure to
plan a linear
path on how to achieve that goal. Doing
something cold-turkey never works and sets
us on the path to failure. However, by
creating a linear path with small goals in
between, we can more easily keep our
internal drive going so we can achieve our
end result.
– Cody McLain, CEO, WireFuseMedia LLC
15. Have Calendar Alerts
Set calendar
alerts now to
remind you to
stay on track.
For some, that
may mean
scheduling your
workouts for 2015 now. For me, it means
setting alerts reminding me to send thank
you notes every week to people who have
gone above and beyond to support my
business.
– Alexis Wolfer, CEO, The Beauty Bean
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