Instead Of New Year Resolution, Create a Life Resolution

SuccessMuslim.com | January 1, 2011 | Comments (2)

Every January, people all over the world sit down with pen and paper at hand to write their New Year’s Resolutions for the upcoming year. This is a ritual that goes into every one of our lives. The ritual called New Year Resolution. We imagine ourselves to be a super human by Jan 1st. Goals are perfectly made and life is just perfect.

Enjoy Life
1. Enjoy Life( No Worries)
Go Ahead
2. Reach office on time
Friends & Family
3. Spend time with friends and family
Go for Outings
4. Go for Trips & Outings
Keep House Clean
5. Keep House Clean
quit smoking
6. Quit Drinking & Smoking
No to junk food
7. Say no to junk food
Read Books
8. Buy & Read Books
Workout Excercise
9. Workout & Exercise
Writing Diary
10. Write Diary

By January 15th, things begin to change. Most of the resolutions that we said we would maintain is no longer done.

Now, there is something that we look forward to. Another Dec 31 and another new year, so that we work again on our New Year resolution.

This is a rat race that happens to each of our lives. Instead of creating New Year Resolution, create a Life Resolution.

A life resolution is something you will commit to work on, no matter what the date is on the calendar. This is a round the year resolution. It can start any time. You are committed for the entire life time of yours, and thus even if you slip in the middle, you just start over the very next moment.

One Goal for Each Slice of your Life Wheel

We can divide our life into various slices – Health, Finance, Relationship, Career, Social Life, etc – as shown below.
life_wheel

Instead of just having, say Career oriented goals, you can pick one goal for each of these slices. When you put a goal to this slice, you also have to decide “what” will give you a 10/10 for this slice. And this is what you will be aiming to achieve for this year – “To get a 10/10 for your each of the life wheel slices”.

Analysing your past year resolution

Have a look at the goals you put last year and see how you did last year. On the rate of 1-10, rank your goals you made previous year.

Congratulate yourself for the success you achieved in your goals last year. If there were goals that didn’t work out as you planned, take time to analyze them. Are they on your current New Year resolution list ? Were they closer to completion (say 7/10) or you did very bad (2/10).

If there are unfilled resolutions in your plate carried over from last year, it is important for you to understand the reason why you did not complete it last year. Because, without knowing that, the “reason” itself will be carried to this year, and you will end up having lots of incomplete resolutions.

Here are few instructions while setting your Life Resolutions.

1. Be realistic by setting achievable goals. Winning the lottery, for example, is out of your grasp.

2. Describe your resolutions in specific terms. Instead of “I don’t want to be lazy,” opt for “I want to exercise regularly” or “I will cut down on my television watching.”

3. Break down large goals into smaller ones. For instance, commit to losing weight by resolving to join a gym and improve your eating habits.

4. Find alternatives to a behavior that you want to change, and make this part of your resolution plan. So you want to quit smoking but you smoked to relax yourself? What other forms of relaxation are available to you?

5. Above all, aim for things that are truly important to you, not what you think you ought to do or what others expect of you.

Instead of creating just a New Year resolution, create a Life Resolution. And let your new life begin today !

SuccessMuslim


Tags: , ,

Category: Health Mastery, ibadath mastery, Time Mastery

About SuccessMuslim.com: This is a personality development, success coaching and mentoring website for Muslims. Success , achieving our best, win duniya and akhira – This is the theme of this site. Each month SuccessMuslim.com will be dedicated for one personality development topic. May – “Self Esteem”, June – “Reading and Writing skills”, July – “Time Management”, August – “Ramadan Special”. View author profile.

  • Sumayyah

    To make effective goals, make them “SMART” = specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timebound.

    E.g.”I will exercise” = “I will go jogging for 30 minutes twice a week” “I will read Quran” = “I will read at least 2 pages of Quran every day”.

    By making them specific, measurable and timebound, you can tell if you’re achieving them (e.g. you might count going shopping as exercise, but you can’t cheat on jogging twice a week!). By making them achievable, you allow for easy success (e.g. 2 pages of Quran a day); once the small thing becomes a habit, you can increase the amount. And as we know, the regular deeds are the most pleasing to Allah (sic). Finally, being relevant helps achieve your bigger objectives; e.g. if your life goal is to know and understand the Quran, you may have relevant smaller daily/ weekly goals around memorisation, tajweed, tafsir, etc.

    Jzk for the article :)

  • successmuslim

    Mashah Allah. Excellent..Jazakallahu khairan for the tips !