Happy New Year! Resolutions, anyone?
- Juliet Leung
- Jan 4, 2018
- 3 min read
‘Bring out the old, bring in the new/ A midnight’s wish, to share with you’ – The Perfect Year, Sarah Brightman
Has 2017 treated you well? Have you had your share of ups and downs, times of joy and moments of frustration? With the beginning of a year, instead of asking whether 2018 will treat you well, why not ask yourselves – how are YOU going to treat 2018? Here are a few tips from our ambassadors in order to make the best of your new year’s resolutions! Hopefully, it would make the long and ambitious list more achievable this year.
Set smaller goals
Somewhere in that long list of yours, there would be something along the lines of ‘Be the top of the class in final exams’, or ‘run 1000 km this year’, or ‘win a public speaking competition’. Yet, after penning the list, you turn to stare at your cluttered desk, dusty trainers and traumatising memories of stage fright, and the goals are just too far away from you. It is very easy to lose motivation if your goals are way too ambitious. Instead, set monthly goals! Divide them up into chunks with little steps: improve speech structures in one month, improve delivery and gesture in one month, and then work on impromptu skills for two months. When your goals are being broken down, they become more achievable and you will come to congratulate yourself on every step you have made in order to transform your wish list into reality.
List out the details of how you are going to achieve it
It is not enough to break down your goals. To make it achievable, try to form a more detailed plan, at least for the first two or three months of the year. Do this by researching for materials that would be helpful to you (such as study materials, websites, or books) and decide on your action plan: be it forming a habit of reading the news every day, or to practise speaking aloud to the mirror every day before going to bed. Action plans not only help you to visualise what you will achieve in the end, but also help you to examine whether the goals you set out in your new year’s resolutions are realistic or not. A lot of our resolutions actually require a lot of long-term planning and could not be achieved in a day. Thus, it would be helpful to set out guidelines for yourself to guide you forward through the year.
Let your family and friends know about it
Tell your family and close friends about what you are trying to do! Self-motivation is obviously a very important element in making 2018 a fruitful year, but at the same time, support and supervision from family and friends play an important role. Letting them know about your plans is helpful in several ways. First, your family would understand you better instead of querying your every step in the following year, allowing you more freedom to achieve your goals. Also, whenever you feel like slacking or giving up, your family would be there to remind you of your dream and support you through it. Encouragement from friends is also really important. And who knows, perhaps they might end up joining you on your journey to become a better person!
Put it somewhere obvious
Stick everything up – your resolutions, your actions plans, and everything else. Or put them in your favourite notebook, or set it as your desktop wallpaper… Anyhow, make sure that they stay close to you and you would not forget about them easily. Keeping track of how far you have gone, and how much closer you are to your goals is what keeps you going through the next 365 days.
With these little tips, the ambassadors wish everyone a very happy, fruitful and enjoyable 2018. A midnight’s wish will come true, only if you work hard for it.Juliet
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