It is a New Year 2005 and I want to wish you good health, long life, success and happiness.
During the New Year, most people make resolutions but often very few are able to keep them.
Psychologists, Janet Polivy and Peter Herman, reported that 25% of new year’s resolutions will be abandoned in the first 15 weeks; the average number of times an individual makes a new year’s resolution is 10, and that those whose resolutions lasted for about 6 months or more often tried 5 or 6 times before they succeeded.
For many years until recently, I was unable to keep any of my new year’s resolutions. So, my friend, you’re not alone.
This caused a lot of hardship in my life. I had many personal bad habits I wanted to get rid of, but due to lack of self-discipline and control, I was unable to do so.
Since 3 years ago, my life has changed and improved because of a few strategies I developed that helped me kick my bad habits, improve myself and achieve my ambitions in life.
What is your new year’s resolution? Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to stop smoking? Do you want to stop drinking? Do you want to kick your drug habit? Do you want to stop gambling? Do you want to make three times more money this year?
Whatever your resolutions and goals may be, you can succeed if you adopt a few easy strategies I want to reveal.
Permit me to share with you 10 of these easy tips that have helped me keep my new year’s resolutions and make them work for me.
(1) Be reasonable
Know your weaknesses, define them and commit to improving yourself. Do all that is reasonable and legal to kick your bad habits and change your life for the better.
Have reasonable expectations.
For example if you’re 100Ibs overweight, it will be unreasonable to expect to lose all of it in a week!
However, if you make a commitment to engage in more physical exercises, eat healthy food and allow about 3 months, then that will be reasonable and you may succeed.
I was 100 Ibs overweight for many years, but by being reasonable, I have lost all the extra weight!
Make a resolution because it is right for you and will help you succeed in life and not because you want to please others or because it is fashionable.
You can’t please anyone until you’ve pleased yourself.
Set priorities. Start with small goals and resolutions and work your way up to the jumbo ones.
(2) Don’t bite more than you can chew
Take it easy on yourself. You’re human, not a machine. Don’t make too many resolutions, which will then be hard for you to keep and cause you to fail and feel disappointed and hopeless.
Make about 2-3 resolutions at a time. Be very clear about the bad habits that you wish to kick or goals that you desire to achieve.
Don’t make a decision to kick a habit unless you’re ready for it.
For example some people who have been smoking or drinking alcohol for many years have noticed that each time they decided to quit they have failed.
The reason is that they may not be physically or mentally ready yet to stop.
When you smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol, there are many biological and chemical activities involved.
The cells and organs in your body change and become dependent on the chemicals in the cigarettes (nicotine) and alcohol.
Therefore even though you have realized the dangers of smoking or drinking, you may not be able to suddenly wake up from sleep and decide to stop.
Those cells and organs in your body may still continue to need the chemicals.
This is the cause of the “urge”, “desire”, or “craving” that you feel to smoke or drink.
So, take it easy. Withdraw from bad habits slowly. If you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, start by cutting it down to half a pack daily and continue until someday, suddenly, the urge to smoke will stop.
And stop blaming yourself for the bad habits. Accept your bad habits, but determine to kick them.
Acceptance frees you slowly from the bad habits. Guilt and self- condemnation splits your energy and ties you more and more to the bad habits, so avoid these feelings.
You can apply the same strategy to kick any bad habit. Slowly and steadily, if you persevere, you’ll win!
(3) Write your resolutions down.
After you’ve clearly realized and defined your weaknesses and bad habits, write them down in a notebook. Write all your goals and ambitions down in a notebook. This is one way to get mentally and physically committed to taking action.
Bad habits are all the behavior and personality traits that block your way in life and make it difficult for you to achieve your dreams and ambitions.
If you don’t know your weaknesses and habits in life, perhaps you can do what I did and ask any of your enemies to tell you. (Tip: Don’t ask family members or friends. They will never tell you the truth because they are afraid of offending you. Only enemies can help you. And if you have no enemy, make one on purpose!)
(4) Picturize your resolutions daily.
Be sure you have easy access to your notebook in which you wrote down your resolutions, goals and ambitions.
Read your resolutions at least twice a day, first thing in the morning and also just before you go to sleep in the night. Think about and mentally picturize your resolutions. See yourself in the eye of your mind succeeding with all your resolutions, goals and ambitions. Smile and tell yourself all the time that you have the willpower, the self-control and discipline to run your life and to achieve all that you desire.
This is a good way to program your mind and thoughts. Instead of allowing others, TV, radio and magazine advertisements to program your mind and thoughts, control you and thereby force you to engage in bad habits, take matters into your hands and begin to constantly program your mind and thoughts with positive affirmations for success and happiness.
(5) Search for and obtain tools and resources that can help you actualize your resolutions, goals and ambitions.
It is not enough to know your weaknesses, set up goals and also visualize them.
You must also obtain the necessary tools and resources to use to make your resolutions, goals and ambitions succeed.
For this reason, the Internet is a powerful tool for you. Search out and read articles on various topics to obtain valid useful information.
Buy and view “How To Videos” to learn any skills you need. Go to Cbmall Storefront (a Clickbank Store), where you can find 10,000 different e-books that can provide solutions to any problems you may have and provide you with insight into how to handle difficult aspects of your life.
Information and its correct application is power. To search and obtain the right information is going half way to solving your problems.
(6) Read good books on various subjects.
Get into the habit of reading good books, articles and magazines because that is one way to increase your knowledge and perspective in life.
The more you read good books, the more educated, intelligent and sharp you’ll be.
Go to your nearest public library and borrow good books. The last time I went to my nearest public library, I borrowed 20 books at a time. Do you get it? Reading very good books is one way that I have obtained the knowledge I am sharing with you here. Read good magazines. Borrow good movies from your nearest public library and watch and try to learn a lesson from it.
You can find time to read. When you come back from work, after having your meal, read a book. When going to work, if you ride the train or use any other public transportation, read a book.
Any time you have free time, read a good book!
(7) Network with family members, friends and colleagues.
Go out and meet your friends and discuss their problems as well as yours.
Join clubs, associations and groups and mingle with others. Make friends daily where you go! By doing this, you’ll gain insight into human conditions and their problems. This will help you then understand your own problems and how to solve them. Talk about other people’s problem all the time, as well as yours. Make the world know what you’re thinking. Go out. Be bold. Communicate with others. Phone others. Chat with others. E-mail other people. Say something. Open your mouth and say “hello” to others. (Don’t worry, they won’t bite you!) Talk to other human beings! Get the load off your chest. Know what is going in your city, state and the world. Read the news. Rise, shine and succeed.
(8) Update your resolutions continuously.
A lot of times the resolutions you set up may not work out as you planned.
So, be ready to keep revising and updating them. Be flexible. Bend but don’t break. Keep all options open. Be pragmatic and be willing to look at every aspect of a situation before forming an opinion. Flow with the times and with life.
When you attain a goal or achieve a resolution, delete it from your list and replace it with another one. View your resolutions and goals daily. Be possessed by them. If you do that, sooner or later, it will start impacting on your mind and it will activate circumstances and start bringing to you people, conditions and opportunities you need to actualize your goals and resolutions.
(9) Don’t give up.
Life is change. Sometimes things will go your way and other times it will not.
When it doesn’t go your way, don’t get mad, blame the devil, feel disappointed and give up. There is no devil causing you problems in life. If you fall, get up and keep moving. Life is made up of ups and downs, understand it now and accept it. It is the facticity of life. Keep pushing ahead all the time. Refuse to give up. As long as you keep moving, someday, you’ll reach where you’re going. And Avoid making excuses.
Remember you’re an immortal and life is endless. There is no beginning and no end. Life is movement. So, keep moving. Don’t be discouraged by failure. Keep moving on. Push ahead. Never give up. Never quit. Quitters never win in life and winners never quit.
(10) Believe and Trust yourself.
To make your goals and resolutions succeed, you must believe and trust in yourself.
I tell you, my dear friend, unless you believe and trust yourself, nobody will.
Unless you belief and trust yourself, true success may not happen for you.
Most people fail in life because they don’t trust themselves. They have made many resolutions and set up many goals that failed and so became disappointed.
They listen to the pessimistic opinions of their family members and friends.
So, stay away from negative people who enjoy telling you all the time why you’ll never succeed.
Seek and associate with positive people who have the same ambitions in life like you do. Exchange ideas with them. Learn from them. Be creative. Do things differently from others. Be original.
Think about both sides of every thing before doing it. See the big picture.
Stop being limited. Think big and clearly and free your self. Let your imagination soar high to the blue sky.
No matter what happens to you in life, don’t give up on yourself. Never give up on your dreams and aspirations. Some dreams may take a short time to become a reality while others may take a long time, but all the same they will come true someday, if you keep moving on.
Make yourself number one, “numero uno”. Trust yourself. Listen to yourself.
Respect yourself. Think well of yourself. Think of what is good for you.
Set up goals and resolutions. Then obtain all the necessary tools and resources to help you. Then take action. Read good books, watch good movies, and eat healthy food. Drink lots of juices. Engage in physical exercises or work out in the gym.
Think right. Network with the right people. Exchange ideas. Be alert and aware wherever you are. Stop being an automaton. Be civilized, keep the laws of your land and all will be well for you. Rise up and shine.
Enjoy the New Year and may long life, good health and success be yours.
Please feel free to print this article, publish it anywhere or e-mail it to your friends and colleagues.
Thank you.
Warmly,
I-key Benney
About the Author
I-key, an “Enlightened” man & Millionaire CEO from New York City is the creator of "Mscsrrr: Millionaire Secret Cash System", home based business, online investment opportunity (http://www.mscsrrr.com ) which has helped thousands of ordinary people from all over the world to attain financial security and shining success during the past 2 yrs.