Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Mid-Year Resolutions. Now's the Time. | #MidYearResolutions

30-60-90 Day Personal Improvement Action Plan

Research shows that by the middle of the year over 50% of all New Year’s Resolutions have been dropped.

In our last two blog posts we have shared with you some of the main reasons why personal change initiatives fail, as well as the 7 Key Success Factors for Implementing Personal Change.

Today we are giving you one more tool:  the Living A Determined Life 30-60-90 Day Personal Change Action Plan. This is an easy-to-use template for any personal change, personal development, or self-improvement initiative.


The majority of people will wait another six months to set new personal resolutions and goals. Mostly this is because there is no social protocol or push to do otherwise. You can change this for yourself. Here’s a short video on why it is important to make your Mid-Year Resolutions now: 


Let’s make Mid-Year Resolutions a new ritual by sharing this post and the above video with your friends and family.

And, to help get some momentum behind your own Mid-Year Resolutions, here are two free articles on the Living A Determined Life website to help you create and achieve the personal improvement you desire:



Please help spread the word with hashtag #MidYearResolutions. Together we can help others achieve their personal development goals.

Mid-Year Resolutions. Such a positive and powerful way to being the second half of the year. 

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

7 Key Success Factors For Personal Improvement

Mid-Year Resolutions. Make Yours Now. 

Living A Determined Life is an opportunity to continuously examine your life in an on-going manner that helps you build and journey on a path that mentally, emotionally and spiritually aligns with your life's purpose. 

It also means making continuous personal improvements, or what the Japanese call kaizen. For many, this means thinking of personal development as an on-going self-improvement project, or what we call Project You. 

Since personal development should be an ongoing process, we have launched the Mid-Year Resolutions initiative. Research shows that over 80% of all New Year’s Resolutions fail to be achieved, and over 50% have been dropped by the middle of the year, so this is an opportune time to reflect; take account of your personal goals, dreams and hopes; and re-ignite your Determined Life Journey. 

As we wrote in yesterday’s blog post, there are many reasons why we fail at personal change. For one thing, scientific research shows it takes an average of 66 days for a new behavior to become a new habit. So if you start today, any personal improvement change will become a new habit around early September (just after Labor Day in the U.S.).

Here are 7 Key Success Factors for Implementing Personal Improvement Change

  1. Put time aside daily / weekly to review the actions you are taking and monitoring progress. 
  2. Give priority to your personal improvement initiative over other daily tasks. 
  3. Write your personal goals in a SMART format (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). 
  4. Share your goals with others and allow them to hold you accountable. (It's not as scary as it sounds!) 
  5. Focus on only 1-3 change initiatives at a time. 
  6. Track progress and course correct as necessary. 
  7. Recognize your effort and rewards you success. 

Details on these key success factors can be found in our article 7 Key Success Factors for Implementing Personal Change.

Who says personal resolutions can only be made at the start of the year? Don’t fall into this trap. We are at the mid-point of 2017, which makes this an ideal time for re-assessing your personal goals and re-igniting your motivation with some Mid-Year Resolutions.


Please share these thoughts and the article on the 7 Key Success Factors for Implementing Personal Change with your family and friends, and in social media using #MidYearResolutions. Thank you.

Monday, July 3, 2017

Many Reasons Why We Fail At Personal Change

7 Key Success Factors for Implementing Personal Improvement

The year is half over. For many of us those personal change goals we set back in January are no longer on track. What’s worse is that far too many will wait until next January to set themselves new personal improvement goals.

In fact, despite an abundance of motivation and sense of purpose we originally assign to our New Year’s Resolutions, the large majority of these personal change plans are abandoned within the first 90 days of each year. Research shows that 80% of all New Year’s Resolutions result in failure or are not achieved.

Why is this so? What causes such remarkable low results?

There are numerous reasons behind such dismal outcomes. We believe the main factors that contribute the most to any personal improvement effort failing to achieve the desired outcome are:

  • People do not make the top of mind, each and every day. 
  • People attempt too many initiatives simultaneously. This is particularly true at the start of the year when the typical New Year's Resolutions list reaches double-digit figures. 
  • There is no prioritization, with each resolution being treating as equally important. 
  • An unwillingness to just "say no" to distractions and other initiatives. 
  • No concrete action plans. Just wishful thinking that change will somehow magically happen. 
  • A failure to turn the desired change into a daily habit. 
  • Not allowing others to hold us accountable. Keeping our change initiatives private to ourselves indicates we only have to answer to ourselves. And we are all too good at rationalizing our way out of making change. 
  • Not putting our goals into a quantifiable format. 
  • Not racking our progress or keeping journals to know what is working, and what is not.

 
Get Your Personal Improvement Goals Back on Track

Today, at the midpoint of the year, is a perfect time to review the progress of your personal improvement plans and implement our Mid-Year Resolutions game plan to re-ignite your personal change efforts.

To help you with this, our 7 Key Success Factors for Implementing Personal Change tips will help you overcome the hurdles listed above.

Scientific research shows that it takes on average 66 days for a new behavior to become a new habit. That’s a little over two months!

No wonder so many people give up and abandon their personal improvement plans before reaching success. They typically quit too early in the process as they underestimate the time required to fully inculcate and instill a new behavior or a new change into their daily routines.

Don’t let this happen to you. If you start today, you can have a new set of personal improvement habits in place before summer ends.


Go for it. Start Living A Determined Life by getting your personal improvement goals back on track. 

Please help others discover the power of Mid-Year Resolutions by sharing this post in your social media posts using the hashtag #MidYearResolutions. Many thanks. 

Sunday, July 2, 2017

Mid-Year Resolutions | #MidYearResolutions

Re-Ignite Your Personal and Professional Development Goals



Welcome to the midpoint of 2017. Yep, the year is officially half over.


What’s happened to those New Year’s Resolutions you made a short six months ago? How many are on track? How many have you abandoned?


If you are disappointed in the answers to these questions, don’t be dismayed. Did you know that the failure rate of New Year’s Resolutions is over 80%. In fact, research shows that over 50% of all New Year’s Resolutions have been dropped by mid year.


Most people will wait until the beginning of the next new year to set personal resolutions and goals, simply because there is no social protocol suggesting they do otherwise. You can change this for yourself, as this video explains: 




Help us make Mid-Year Resolutions a new ritual by sharing this blog and the above video with your family and friends.


As for yourself (and them as well), we have two free articles on the Living A Determined Life website to help in making Mid-Year Resolutions:

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These two articles, combined with the Personal Change Action Plan tool that you will also find on our website, will help you kick-start your personal growth and self-development. They will also help you get those New Year’s Resolutions back on track, provided they are still relevant and meaningful to you.


Help spread the word with hashtag #MidYearResolutions.


Together we can help others also achieve their personal development goals. Now isn’t that a positive way to start the second half of the year?