How to make life changes in 2009
Karen Mendoza from Hayward says the thing she wants most in the New Year is a new job. She says that she wants to solve her financial problems in 2009 and plans to do this by talking with everyone
in her family. She’d also like to open a restaurant.The start of a new year is a time when a lot of people make resolutions, set goals and make all kinds of promises to themselves and others: losing weight, getting a better job, or improving relationships. Unfortunately, most people will fail to make their resolutions a reality. Instead of expecting failure, here are some strategies to guarantee your success.
Dr. Bernard Davidson, a family psychologist says that you have to be committed. “You must think through what you want to change and commit yourself to the long-term process it usually takes to achieve change. You then need to come up with a realistic plan to help you reach your goals.”
The Santacruz family from San Pablo was shopping in Hayward when Visión Hispana Newspaper asked them about their New Year resolutions. The mother of the family, Georgina, wants to improve her English and wants to keep going to school so she can master the language. She’s planning to do that by being consistent, work hard and do the homework. Her husband, Julio, wants to complete his cabinetry course and lose weight by exercising and eating less, especially bread. By being specific about the bread, Julio has touched on a key success strategy: being specific.
“You have an opportunity to achieve what you have resolved if you will just be real with yourself and make the resolve statements in the form of specific personal actions and specific personal achievements,” says sales expert Jeffery Gitomer. “The more specific you can make them, the more likely you are to make them happen,” he adds. If your resolution is to lose 20 pounds, a root causes could be “I eat the wrong foods”, and a specific personal resolve could be, “I will not drink soda for six months”.
"The keys to making a successful resolution are a person's confidence that he or she can make the behavior change and the commitment to making that change," says Alan Miller, director of the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of Washington. To be successful with your own resolutions, Marlatt suggests:
• Have a strong initial commitment to make a change.
• Have coping strategies to deal with problems that will appear.
• Keep track of your progress. The more monitoring you do and feedback you get, the better you will do.
• To not frame your resolutions as absolutes by saying, "I will never do X again."
Georgina and Julio’s young son, Mark, says his resolution for the New Year is to enjoy life. While that isn’t very specific, Mark’s smile and energy shows that he is already living his goal.