Clutter Video Tip: 5 Ways to Make New Year’s Resolutions that STICK!

Velcro, duct tape, New Year’s Resolutions, bubblegum on the bottom of your shoe…

If you guessed that New Year’s Resolutions are not like the others, then you are in the right place. In this video I share five ways to make resolutions that will stick like gum on the bottom of your shoe (only far less annoying). 😉

(Click here to watch on YouTube if you can’t see the embedded player. Or watch the video at http://bit.ly/TCDStick.)

Transcript:

Hi. I’m Lorie Marrero, and today’s Clutter Video Tip is about New Year’s resolutions. Everybody wants to talk about getting organized for the New Year. So I want to share with you five ways to help you make resolutions that really stick.

First, you want to take on only small amounts of change at a time. I once knew an inactive, meat-eating smoker who decided he was going to take on an exercise program, become a vegetarian, and quitting smoking all at the same time. So, you can imagine how that turned out. And we want to not take all of our goals and just stack them up on top of each other. We want to set those goals out in front of each other and have a line of successes that lead into each other so that we don’t set ourselves up for failure right at the beginning.

Secondly, you don’t want to fall into the trap of all or nothing thinking. This is when you have the idea that you’re either going to do something completely, perfectly all at once, or you’re not going to do it at all. It’s the idea that you have to be completely on or completely off of a program to change. And the example that I love to give is that you think about a business chart that is showing growth. And the chart goes upward over time, but you see the zigs and the zags that happen along the way. You’ve got to expect those zigs and zags, know that they’re going to happen, give yourself permission for them, and just continue on the right track so that you continuously improve over time.

Next, you want to think about being realistic in terms of setting a standard that is right for you. You don’t want to compare yourself or your home to photos that you see in a magazine, or the way that celebrities live on TV, or even compare yourself to a friend or your mother-in- law. You want to have a definition of organizing that makes sense for you, that you can follow, and that you can be successful with.

Next, any goal that you set, you want to make sure that you connect with a very strong and compelling reason why. When you have those zigs and those zags, you’re going to need something to keep your motivation up when it wavers. And that reason why can give you energy and help keep you going. For example, you might want to spend more time with your friends and family, and being organized is going to help you feel a little more comfortable when the doorbell rings. So, when it gets difficult and you are wading through all of those piles of things to donate and things to sell, and you feel a little overwhelmed, you can re-connect to that strong feeling of when to spend that time with your friends and family and knowing how great it’s going to feel when the doorbell rings and you’re not embarrassed.

And that leads me to my last point, and that is getting support. Your motivation will waver, you will have zigs and zags, but the support is the missing link in most people’s efforts toward personal change. So you want to have somebody, like we have in our program, a motivation partner that can help you with encouragement and also as an accountability to help keep you going on the right track. And if you do this your chances of success are much higher.

We have this in our program, and that’s why I created the Clutter Diet Program to begin with. I know that it takes education, motivation, and support to make any kind of personal change, and we’d love to help you get organized for the New Year. You can find out more about our program at clutterdiet.com/learnmore.

See you next time, and may you always be happy and grateful for having more than enough.

You may have been searching for staying on track with goals and resolutions or how to keep going when you get discouraged.

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