Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip it's for thinking about resolutions, goals and habits
Speaker 1: that you wish you'd been pursuing, maybe since New Year's Day,
Speaker 1: or maybe since a long time ago. Instead of regretting
Speaker 1: what you haven't done, start today. Maybe some other time
Speaker 1: might have been the best time to start, but the
Speaker 1: second best time is now. Perhaps New Year's Day came
Speaker 1: and went and you never found the time to set
Speaker 1: goals and intentions for the coming year. Or maybe you
Speaker 1: did make New Year's resolutions but haven't stuck with them
Speaker 1: as faithfully as you hoped. Or maybe your regrets go
Speaker 1: back a bit further, and maybe they're a bit deeper.
Speaker 1: You know, the real that can keep replaying at night.
Speaker 1: If I had started investing aggressively for retirement at age
Speaker 1: twenty two, I could retire now. If I'd put more
Speaker 1: effort into my relationships with my family, we'd all be closer.
Speaker 1: If I had enrolled in that degree program four years ago,
Speaker 1: I'd be finishing. If I had started that nonprofit I
Speaker 1: thought about years ago, maybe we'd be making real changes
Speaker 1: in society instead of just seeing these same problems over
Speaker 1: and over again. There are lots of ways to torture ourselves.
Speaker 1: But you don't have to wait for an official fresh
Speaker 1: start like January one, and you don't have to declare
Speaker 1: further action feudal because so much time has passed since
Speaker 1: the optimal time. Just start today. Sure, by starting on
Speaker 1: a random day, you'll miss out on some group momentum,
Speaker 1: which is one of the nice aspects of New Year's resolutions,
Speaker 1: but any day is going to have its challenge. Is
Speaker 1: something worth doing? Is worth starting even in suboptimal conditions.
Speaker 1: As the saying goes, the best time to plant a
Speaker 1: tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is now.
Speaker 1: So today. Identify an important priority or goal that you
Speaker 1: want to focus on for some period of time, maybe
Speaker 1: the rest of this month, whatever makes sense. Then commit
Speaker 1: to your resolution, just as you would a New Year's resolution.
Speaker 1: Perhaps you'll tell your friends and family about your goal
Speaker 1: or post about it on social media. When people know
Speaker 1: what you're working toward, they can encourage you in your
Speaker 1: efforts and celebrate progress with you. They can hold you accountable,
Speaker 1: which can increase your motivation. That said, some people prefer
Speaker 1: to keep the resolutions or goals private rather than telling people.
Speaker 1: There's actually some research supporting this quietness in certain circumstances.
Speaker 1: It turns out that we can get a sneaky feeling
Speaker 1: of accomplishment just from telling people about a goal. Say
Speaker 1: you're going to volunteer every Saturday, and you already feel
Speaker 1: like the kind of person who volunteers every Saturday, even
Speaker 1: if come Saturday you do something else. So if you
Speaker 1: suspect that would be you, find another way to make
Speaker 1: your commitment concrete. For instance, you could document your goals
Speaker 1: in a prominent place in your journal or planner, or
Speaker 1: put a note on your computer screen or bathroom mirror.
Speaker 1: You could even create a recurring calendar item to remind
Speaker 1: you of your goal and prompt you to reflect on
Speaker 1: your progress. If you have a weekly planning routine, I
Speaker 1: hope you do include time for reflecting on the past
Speaker 1: week's actions related to your goal and planning for the
Speaker 1: next week's goal. Motivated behavior think about potential challenges, think
Speaker 1: about how you'll address them, blackout time to take various
Speaker 1: steps towards your goal. There are all kinds of things
Speaker 1: that we should have done earlier. Sometimes these things seem
Speaker 1: obvious in retrospect. If I knew I was going to
Speaker 1: be writing books for a living, I should have done
Speaker 1: more to build up an audience. If I knew I'd
Speaker 1: love singing in my church choir, I should have joined
Speaker 1: when I joined the church, rather than waiting for an
Speaker 1: inexplicable six years. But those six years are gone one
Speaker 1: way or another. You can feel bad about it or
Speaker 1: enjoy every moment of opportunity that is available moving forward.
Speaker 1: Don't be kicking yourself in twenty years for the tree
Speaker 1: you didn't plant today. In the meantime, this is Laura.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
Speaker 1: our time. Hey everybody, I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Speaker 1: Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast pod. That's B the number four, then Breakfast
Speaker 1: p o D. You can also shoot me an email
Speaker 1: at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com.
Speaker 1: That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio. For
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