We often associate a new year with new beginnings - a clean slate and a renewed hope for success. This is why millions of people will make their New Year's Resolutions every year.
New Year's Resolutions may be for better health, a better mind, or a better relationship. Unfortunately, most people will fail by the first month's end.
I was also a serial New Year's "Resolutionist" at one point, but I realized that it would often lead to failure way before the end of the year, so I decided to make a New Month Resolution instead.
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What is a New Month Resolution?
A New Month Resolution is just like a New Year's Resolution. However, instead of doing the changes spanning the 365 days of the year, you will just need to make changes for 30 or so days.
Doing this will help you set smaller but more achievable goals that you can spread out throughout the year.
Using a New Month Resolution will also allow you to cut the year in chunks of 30 days that will help you achieve your goals and get immediate feedback that you can use to re-evaluate and adjust the following month.
What are the Advantages of Making a New Month Resolution?
1. You can set better SMART goals.
Goals should always be SMART; since you're now making a New Month Resolution instead of a New Year Resolution, you're time-bounded to a specified 30-day period, which is easier to grasp.
Since it's a shorter time frame, you can also see the importance of making your goals specific, measurable, attainable, and realistic.
However, if the goals you set fail, it would be easier to re-evaluate and adjust.
2. You can get faster feedback and adjust accordingly.
Since you're only making your habit changes in 30-day sprints, it will be faster to get feedback on how you are progressing. You can also see which habits are going faster and which are lagging to adjust accordingly.
Quick feedback will also help you evaluate your goals to create better strategies, re-assess your plans, adjust, and see if it works by the end of the following month.
3. It's easier to set your mind to.
Parkinson's Law says that work expands to fill the available time for its completion. For instance, your goal is to write a 12,000-word book by the end of the year.
Do you honestly believe you will write it in the first six months? Chances are, as many students do, you will cram to write it in the last three or even in the final month.
So, by using a New Month Resolution and setting monthly goals, you can spread the work into 30-day intervals. This way, your goal will be to write 1,000 words monthly. It's not as hard to wrap your head around this time, isn't it?
4. You get 12 times to accomplish a goal.
When doing a New Year's Resolution, how often do you make as many as 12 resolutions in a year? If you're like me, you'll likely set around five to ten because more than this can be exhausting to track.
However, with a New Month Resolution, even if you just set one goal per month, you'll quickly reach 12 goals by the end of the year, with some habits carrying over on the next month or so.
You'll notice that I usually have various "One-Month Challenges" throughout the year because it's easier to track, analyze, and evaluate whether it's good.
Here are some of the one-month challenges I did last year:
5. You can be more consistent.
Finally, using a New Month Resolution will help you be more consistent for longer, as long as you don't miss twice.
For instance, you want to establish a long-term habit of reading or exercising. Adding it to your New Month Resolution lets you track how many times you did this in a month, which will be your reference for the next month.
You can also make your goal ridiculously easy to start, which would be embarrassing not to do to avoid procrastination.
Final Thought:
A New Month Resolution is only a tool that will help you realize that you don't need to wait for a new year before you can make positive changes in your life.
Remember that we have 12 months in a year, each giving us a new opportunity to get back on our feet and try again.
I hope that this will help you do better this year. God bless you!