Setting goals is easy, but working towards them, making life changes and starting new habits is difficult. Long after the sparkle of starting something new wears off, you may still have a long way to go towards reaching that goal, or doing something every single day. It can be tough, but one of the best ways to turn ideas into goal and habits into lifestyles is to take your self-improvement public, where your friends and the world can see. Let’s look at why the collective is such a powerful tool, and how you can harness it.
What’s the first thing you do when you get to your computer in the morning? Check your favourite intertainment? Our pal Clay Johnson discusses why this is the last thing you should do.
For many of us, our morning routine consists of getting out of bed a little late, rushing through our morning activities, and then commuting to work while still in a haze of sleep. This isn’t conducive to getting our brains working in the morning, and author Annie Murphy Paul suggests slowing down our morning routine to help boot your brain and solve problems.
We’re all busy people, and there’s no doubt that it’s difficult to stick to our goals, especially when it comes to things that demand willpower to work towards, like eating healthier. The key here is that you have a limited supply of willpower, and when it’s gone it’s tough to stay motivated to do the hard things, even if they’re good for us. The solution? Pay yourself now to bolster your motivation later.
We frequently mention techniques to help you develop good habits and break bad ones, but if you’re having difficulty really sorting out the things you could or should change about your life, the blog Zen Habits has a solid suggestion: think of your daily activities as things you “practice”. Now consider which of those activities you dislike, and why you keep doing them.
If you made New Year resolutions, chances are that if you’re not already failing, you will be soon. In the end, most people do. I know I fail. What’s worse, you’re probably undermining your resolutions and don’t even know it. Here’s how I put an end to my resolution sabotage.
Whether you’re trying to kick a bad habit or establish a good one, 21Habit is a simple web app that operates on the principle that you need to repeat a daily activity 21 times before it becomes a habit. Although you don’t have to, the truly serious can put up 21 dollars — one dollar per day — against your commitment that you’ll make those changes.
Resolutions are a yearly tradition. Unfortunately, so is failing to keep them. In fact, 81 per cent of resolutions fail within two years. In this post, we’re going to walk through the basics of how to make a resolution that sticks, then apply those ideas to five of the most common types of resolutions.
Most new year’s resolutions are doomed to failure, either because they’re vague and difficult to accomplish, aren’t real goals or are lacking a plan to get from here to there. iDoneThis is a new web app that takes your goals and habits you want to build, reminds you to work towards them daily or weekly (you can choose), and puts you on a virtual team of people with similar goals so you can work together and support each other.
If you’re the type to feel guilty about certain purchases and you have multiple sources of income, personal finance blog Budgets Are Sexy suggests breaking down your goals with a simple graph to better partition your expenses.