How to set and achieve your New Year’s resolutions
Clinical psychologist, Maredi Mothapo explains how to set and achieve realistic New Year's resolutions.
POLOKWANE – With the new year comes the urge to scream ‘new year, new me’.
Most of us take the new year as an opportunity to start afresh and set new goals or New Year’s resolutions for ourselves. Whether we actually see through our resolutions is an entirely different story.
While we enjoy setting up goals for ourselves are we actually doing it the right way? Review spoke to clinical psychologist, Maredi Mothapo, on how to set realistic goals.
Mothapo says realistic goals must have an objective.
“It must be realistic, specific and goal-oriented. It must be attainable and one must have enough resources to attain the goal. You must have drive from within to attain your goal,” he explained.
He says setting a goal outside of your boundaries of capabilities will make it unrealistic and thus difficult to achieve. This also determines how much resources would be needed to attain your goal.
According to Mothapo, attaching your goal to a time frame will assist in ensuring you reach your goal and target. “Time plays a significant role in helping one to assess the progress. You must periodically evaluate and monitor progress against timelines which would guide if you are still within target, and if not, which areas to be given more attention to get back on track.”
Mothapo says it is also easier to work towards your goal if you are working within a particular structure that will help you stay in your line and encourage discipline. “This means that if a group of friends decide to set goals together, they can encourage each other to work towards the goal. If one member starts slacking off, the others are able to motivate him back on track,” he concluded.
