New Year's Resolution Keys: Sustained Motivation & Support.

Once again, that time of year has come. We add an extra year to the calendar and quickly follow with thoughts of how we might make things different. Improve upon things. Find success in things. Make things more efficient. Rid ourselves of things so we can re-discover what things really matter to us. Find new things. Make sense of some things.

I recently read a couple of statistics about New Year's resolutions and I wanted to share them..

[1] 70% of people who make New Year's resolutions say that the hardest part is staying motivated.

[2] 60% of people who made resolutions said they needed more support to achieve them.

Nothing about these numbers is surprising, in fact, they make absolute sense. Motivation maintenance and the support that is undoubtedly required are, without question, the key reasons people generally only make it through the 'honeymoon' phase of a behavior change attempt. The thing to remember, is that this is natural. There's nothing to feel bad about, nothing to feel ashamed about, nothing to feel failure about. Again, because it's natural.

With anything worth achieving or having, motivation has to come from somewhere. And we're all different in where and how we find this motivation. If motivation were something you could just grab off the 'sale's shelf' at Starbuck's in addition to your coffee drink, well, Starbuck's would be doing even bigger business than they already are. Point being, sometimes we just have to work a little harder and a little smarter to find the right motivation before putting it to use. And sustaining that motivation oftentimes is directly related to the aforementioned 'right motivation'.

Ask anyone who's achieved their dreams and great things in life what it took and undoubtedly you'll hear: hard work, focus, perserverence, goals, a plan....but, under all of this, hidden behind the scenes...that's right, support. Can it be done without it? Not likely. Perhaps, yes...but not likely. We all need support. And the key is finding the right support.

With the right support and motivation in your corner, you cannot fail.

Happy New Year.