The Secret Sauce to Keeping New Year's Resolutions

You may not go in for New Year's Resolutions. Let's face it, most people don't follow through on them. But I, for one, believe in making them, and I believe that just about everybody has the ability to follow through on them.

As long as you have the secret sauce recipe.

If you've been reading this blog at all, you may have guessed what I regard the secret sauce to be, so I'll just tell you. It's staying on track until your desire becomes a habit.

How long this transformation takes is for the academics to say, but let's just say that no one masters anything in a couple weeks. And when you set out to make something happen (learn Spanish, get a black belt, be nicer to people, grow an awesome beard), it usually isn't a small thing. I don't know anyone who resolves to "have a good day tomorrow" on New Year's Day, but those people are pretty much set.

In truth, as much as many of us are "immediate gratification-oriented" folks, we don't set our sights on immediate things. Because the easily gotten things are common. So they aren't the stuff of resolutions.

So how do you make it through the initial phase of learning? As someone who started with the resolution of "learn Spanish" just last year, I have some thoughts for you:

1) Can You Say "Pit Stop"? Right after defining your big, audacious goal, define some milestones. You need to give yourself a chance to see that you've achieved something after the first few weeks of working. For example, I wanted to be able to say a simple sentence to someone in Spanish in the first couple weeks - one that they understood. Gave me a thrill, kept me going.

2) Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail. It is possible that you can just achieve your goal through brute force - but it sure helps if you have some kind of plan, and you understand how to get there. Of course, this will help define the milestones above. For example, I needed some kind of structure for learning, so I settled on using our 3DLanguage product and some books for 15 minutes every morning (I also had to resolve to get up at the "crack of donut" in order to be sure I had uninterrupted time). A friend of mine uses a technique Jerry Seinfeld pioneered (I guess?) for tracking his progress, by marking his daily practice on a calendar, and trying not to break the chain. Hey, whatever works.

3) Focus on the Benefits. Write down the why behind your goal, and keep it posted. Personally, I think learning Spanish will make me cooler. Yup, I said it - and I'm sticking to that reason (actually, I'm kidding. Sort of). So I keep that in the forefront of my mind. And posted at my desk.

4) Incorporate Your Resolution into Your Definition of Yourself. The managing director of a consulting firm I once worked for told me, "If you want to be a great senior consultant, the first thing you need to do is go buy yourself a good suit, pen, and shoes. Dress the part. Pretty soon you'll start acting like a great senior consultant, and after a few years, you'll be one." As strange as it sounds, there's something to this. High performing athletes visualize themselves successfully completing high jumps, touchdown passes, etc. Why not you? We let things outside ourselves define who we are all the time. So use this to your advantage. For me, not just practicing Spanish but speaking it to my family was the key. I'm a Spanish speaker...very possibly a sub-kindergarten Spanish speaker, but in a while...

Bottom line, don't shy away from the resolutions! Set your sights high, and give yourself a chance to succeed. You can do it!