Raise your hand if you’ve ever made a New Year’s resolution that was abandoned by February – or if you’re lucky, March? Yeah, I see you, and you’re not alone. In fact, I was looking up some statistics about resolutions recently and I found out that 19% of people who make a New Year’s resolution say that it didn’t last more than two months! Two months! That’s not going to get you far. 

So why do we set ourselves up to fail year after year? Why do we do this to ourselves? And what can we do that actually works? 

I’ll tell you my first step: 

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions any more. 

Resolutions set you up for failure. 

Because if you have the desire to achieve a goal, you don’t need to wait for the new year. You don’t have to get a brand-new calendar to work on changing your life. You could start right now. 

You could start today. 

If you really want this goal to become a part of your life, why would you put that off? Every day is a good day to change. 

And when we have our resolution, we need to actually do something about it. 

The resolution is just the beginning. 

Say it with me now: “The resolution is just the beginning”. 

Too often, we fall into that trap of thinking that we can pick our goal, say it out loud, talk to our friends about it, and then it’ll just happen. Just like magic. 

If that were the case, we’d all be living our best lives today. 

There’s another reason why resolutions don’t work. Resolutions usually have weak foundations – they’re based on things we think sound good, not necessarily our true heart’s desires. They rely on sheer motivation to power through obstacles. And believe me, there will be obstacles. 

But meaningful change requires more than hype. It requires transforming your daily habits and environment to make it easy to succeed. You need to change how you think and set your life up to support that big goal that you say that you want. 

That’s why I talk about the six pillars of wealth. Thinking about your life in terms of pillars will help you to see where and how you need to change to make your goal a reality. 

If you don’t start with that pillar mindset, your resolution is just gonna burn you out. You’ll give it 100% on day one, then 80% on day two, and keep going down and down, because you never had a support plan in place to help you keep going. 

So what should your plan look like? 

Once you’ve identified your heart’s desire, the one thing you truly want, and looked at your life pillars to see where you need to change, you need to start setting goals. 

Goals get you to your greatness. 

But not all goals are the same. 

There are actually three kinds of goals. Your safe goals are the easy, itty-bitty goals that you can achieve quickly to push you down the road just a few steps toward your dream. Then your support goals are a bit bigger, so they require you to ask for help from somebody else. And lastly, your stretch goals are the ones designed to really challenge you and get you out of your comfort zone and much closer to your end result. 

And when I talk about needing support, I’m serious. When I’m following my goals, I take all the help I can get. I use personal trainers, coaches, friends, and family. 

Because you can’t get there alone. 

And you can’t get there if you don’t get rid of what’s holding you back. 

This process of goal-setting and result-getting requires you to be brutally honest with yourself. 

Because there’s probably something in your life that’s holding you back. 

In order for us to achieve what we want, we need to release what’s not working for us. Let it go!

You can’t save the money you want to if you’re going to a weekly happy hour and dropping cash on drinks and snacks. You can’t lose weight if you’re always getting take-outs. And so on.

Be honest with yourself about the habits you have that are no longer serving you. 

There’s one other big change that you need to make when you’re on your journey to achieving results. 

You need to take on a new identity. 

Let me unpack that a little: You need to adopt the identity of the person you want to be.

Take me, for example. I used to say I wasn’t a runner. I would tell anyone who asked me that I didn’t run. And that I’d never ran. This story I told stretched all the way back to high school. 

So when I changed my mind and decided that I did want to run, the first thing I did was tell people I was a runner. 

I changed my identity first, and then I followed that up with action. 

And now, I’m a runner. 

The lesson here is that the language you use really matters. 

Your words attract energy into your life and that energy brings change. Your language can help you to shift those limiting beliefs that you’ve been holding onto for too long. 

If all of this sounds like something you’re ready for, I’d love to see you at my Resolutions Not Resolutions Masterclass. It’s a live event where I teach you how to identify your true goals and what to do to make them a reality. 

And it’s fun! 

My framework helps you to make real change possible. And you’ll meet a load of other Purpose Chasers like you who are ready to start this journey together. 

Because remember, the resolution is just the beginning. 

It doesn’t get you to your real result. 

That’s all I have for you today! See you next time – 

Patrice. 

Connect with Me:

• Take the Redefining Wealth quiz to work out which pillar you need to start working on: https://patricewashington.com/quiz/
• Join Me at Results Not Resolutions https://patricewashington.com/results/ 
• View my website at https://patricewashington.com/ 
• Follow me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/seekwisdompcw/

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