
Every new year millions of people start putting down their New Year’s resolutions.
The concept is that with a fresh new year, we all get a fresh start. But chances are you sent resolutions before, and not reach them. In fact, most of us have set the same resolutions year after year only to find that by February we fallen off the wagon and are making excuse after excuse why we can’t reach the goal.
If you think that only people with monster motivation or extreme discipline can be successful with their New Year’s resolutions, then you’re absolutely wrong.
Anybody can succeed at their New Year’s resolution if they stay focused, and use these simple little tricks to stay on track.
Your chances for success are just the same as mine, are you going to use the sneaky tricks to stay on track?
Here are 5 New Year’s Resolution Secrets.
Focus On One Big One
Every year we all sit down and decide that we are going to commit to making BIG changes this year. We say or write down 5-10 things we want to change and some of us even post them to our Facebook wall. We think of all the things in our life we want to change and try to change it all at once.
The problem is that this is nearly impossible.
Psychologists have proven that your mind can only focus on a few things at a time. If you’re trying to change 5 or 10 things at once while still trying to maintain your everyday life, then it is absolutely certain that you will fail.
If you want success, then you have to focus on only 1 goal at a time until you have reached that goal, then you can focus on the next goal until you reach it.
Remember The Saying “Out Of Sight Out Of Mind”
Write down and review your resolution every single day.
Put notes on your mirror, your refrigerator and even on the dash of your car.
If you aren’t constantly looking at your goal and reinforcing your goals to yourself, then it’s very easy for the saying to become true.
Out of sight really does put your goal out of mind.
It’s easy to get distracted, and it’s even easier to make an excuse to skip a workout or cheat on your diet. If you aren’t constantly reminding yourself about your goal, then you’re more likely to fall off the wagon and never succeed.
Tell A Friend
As I mentioned before, many of us are prone to place our resolutions are Facebook wall as a way of sharing them with their friends.
If you aren’t the type to announce what you want to change, it’s time to become more outspoken with your goals.
When it comes to losing weight, most of us keep our goals to ourselves. But there are times when this can be worse for your success. If you announce your goal to your friends and family, just knowing that they know will help keep you accountable and keep you focused on your goal.
Think about it, if you told all everyone you know you were to lose 50 pounds by the end of the year, wouldn’t you be more likely to take the steps necessary to achieve that goal?
After all, everybody you know is expecting you to follow through on that goal.
That creates a lot of pressure.
This kind of pressure is exactly the kind of motivation that can make or break your success. So this year, make your big goal and post it on your Facebook wall.
Then you can even take it a step further and post weekly updates to your goal.
You’d be surprised how doing this can keep you motivated, and reveal supportive friends as well. When your friends and family start to see you making progress they will praise you and this will give you an extra boost toward your goal.
Reward Yourself
It’s a lot easier to stick to your resolution when you have a set reward.
In the same way, it’s a lot easier to stick to your weekly actions if you have a set reward. If you find yourself struggling to stay motivated, or stick to your eating plan, find a way to reward yourself for a job well done each week.
If you have weekly goals, and weekly rewards, it will make reaching your overall goal so much easier, and it will happen so much faster.
Maybe you can create a weekly meal plan and a weekly exercise plan, and reward yourself with something at the end of the week if you stick to it.
This can be something like a reward meal, or something to pamper yourself such as getting something you’ve always wanted, going somewhere you enjoy, or just time for yourself.
For your overall goal, I suggest making the reward huge.
The bigger you can make it the more likely you are to stick to your body composition goals.
If you know that when you reach a 10% body fat, you get to go on a cruise, chances are your work a lot harder to reach the body fat than if you just get to go to Taco Bell. 
Make It Measurable (Be Specific)
One of the biggest problems people have when setting goals are making resolutions is that they remain vague about what they want.
If you say I want to lose weight, and you sweat off 1 pound of water weight, you’ve just succeeded. But chances are that’s not what you want I’m guessing if you’re setting a new you is resolution concerning weight loss, you want a whole lot more than 1 pound of water weight gone.
Instead of focusing on how much weight you want to lose, focus on what your ideal weight would be, or better yet focus on your body fat percentage.
If you focus on your body fat percentage, you can measure this every step of the way to see what your actual results. If you measure using a scale, you could reach instant failure if you gain a couple pounds of muscle but lose a few pounds of fat.
This is because your scale may read the same, or you may even gain a pound and get discouraged. When in reality your body fat is dropping every step of the way.
Figure out a body fat percentage that you will resolve to have by the end of the year, and write that down.
Another example of a measurable goal, or measurable action-goal is to follow a certain guideline.
You may write a goal to follow your diet plans prescribed eating guidelines until you reach your body fat percentage goal. This is less a results oriented goal and the more an action goal, but many people find it just as powerful
Having measurable goals will allow you to focus on the end result rather than some vague hope like I want to lose weight, or I want to make more money.
Remember, if you’re vague about your goal, you can reach it almost instantly. But if you’re specific, you must take specific action in order to achieve it.
Hollywood stars and fitness models always have specific goals concerning body composition and that’s why they can make such big changes toward such lean bodies.
Let’s get those comments going! What’s your New Years Resolution?
Tell me Yours and I’ll Tell you mine.

Be back in a few days,
“The Fat Loss Informant”