So most of us are in week one of our New Year's Resolutions. How is everyone doing so far? Hopefully, no one has relapsed already, as that would made me wish I wrote this article last week to help you out. While New Year's resolutions can be very tricky for a number of reasons, I've discovered there are generally three things that you can begin to track that will help you understand how to increase your chances of being successful in creating a new YOU for 2015. I'm sure many of you want to be an entirely different person this year, while some of you just want to make little tweaks to become a little more successful than last year. Whatever your desire, there are three things that you can track and measure that will help you know how well youare doing on this path and what you need to do to ensure that you see greater success than you may have in the past. These three things are simply:
HOW DO YOU SPEND YOUR TIME
This is a big one for me, as I have often struggled with the balance of trying to work very hard and play very hard as the same time. I have lived a pretty fun life of parties and trips whenever I wanted and it has been great. The only problem with this, however, is that while these parties and trips have been fun and have given me many stories that I will never forget (and I do mean MANY), how have they helped me get closer to my ultimate goals? When you are looking at what you are going to do differently in 2015, you must begin to track and analyze how you spend your time each day, week, and month. Are you spending most of your time sleeping in until 11am or noon on a Saturday/ Sunday because you were out the previous night until 3am or are you waking up at 5am to begin working on your plan for success and doing the necessary research to get there? Instead of spending your Sunday afternoon making sure you run those 3 miles or hitting the gym like you said you would, are you catching the 1pm playoff game and drinking with your buddies - not only taking away your time to exercise but also adding more calories to your diet from the probable bad food and drink that you are going to consume at that time - a double whammy. If you are at work, and you find yourself surfing Tinder or ESPN.com instead of what you have been paid to do, then you truly have to think about what is more important to you. Tinder is a very "interesting" app, but it isn't going to help you get that bonus that you want at the end of the year. While it may help you achieve some OTHER goals, that should be left for a different time of your day to focus on.
WITH WHOM YOU SPEND YOUR TIME
This is one that has been hard for me as well, but I had to come to some realization at this point in my life. It is said that your net worth will be close to the people you hang out with the majority of the time, and while I can't say that my current group of friends don't do well for themselves, the aspirations that I have put me at a much higher level of income than any of us currently see. For that reason, I have to make sure that I am incorporating new individuals into my life who have achieved some of the things that I want to achieve and can give me advice and encouragement on the things that are important to me. You are going to have friends who are going to discourage you from making the lifestyle changes that you desire and most of them are not doing so because they don't want to see you successful. They just may not have the same view on how to approach things as you do and that's okay. You just have to make sure that you don't allow these individuals to influence you to the point in which you are backsliding into the old YOU at any point. Therefore, you have to work to identify new individuals who are where you want to be in life and can give you the encouragement and help to get there, while limiting your time to some degree with those individuals who make it more difficult for you to be the better person that you aspire. If you have a friend who only wants to drink all the time, and you have decided to give it up, hanging with this person for an entire weekend may be too hard when you originally make this decision, so you have to temper your time with him/her in some way. If you have a friend who only wants to eat fatty fast foods all the time, going to lunch with her/him every day during the work week probably isn't the best decision. You have to decrease these interactions for some time until you are strong enough in your new lifestyle (a habit generally takes a month to take hold) that you can resist the temptation to go back to your old way of living.
HOW YOU SPEND YOUR MONEY
The last part is very important, as most people's goal is to become financially wealthy at some point in life. As it has always been said, it's not about how much money you make, it's about how much you keep, and the first and second measurements are directly related to this. How you spend your time and the people with whom you spend your time will greatly affect how much money you are able to save and put away to help achieve your hopes and goals. A little known fact is that Gene Simmons (one of the founders of KISS), funded the majority of the bands start-up cash on his own because he was able to work and save tens of thousands of dollars by working jobs that didn't pay much more than $5/hr due to his frugality and refusal to waste his money on frivolous things. Had he not done this, and instead spent his money on excessive alcohol and women, the great band that is world renowned today may had never existed. Therefore, always make decisions based on financially what is going to make more sense for you. For example, if you had a choice between two females to hang out with (not a bad predicament by the way) - one who always wants to drink and eat out and NEVER offers to pay for anything, and the other who is good with perhaps getting a reasonable meal somewhere or just watching a economical movie off of Netflix, you should probably go with the second. Chances are the first female is probably doing this with you and two or three others guys as well, so she really isn't quality material as it is. Always make decisions based on what is going to make the most sense for your net worth in the long run. Not easy at all the time I know, but often the most economical decisions EASILY turn out to be the best ones.
If you may have already relapsed on your New Year's resolutions, don't despair, no one says that you have to wait until the beginning of the year to create a new you. Besides, you didn't already have these great tips that I just shared, so you had a reason things didn't work out. If you are able to consistently measure and control these three things, your chances of success are 100 fold. My famous saying is Know Better, Do Better, so now that you know, you can start over right now and DOMINATE the rest of 2015. Happy dominating...
Ken Middleton is an Account Manager at TEKsystems that specializes in IT staffing and services. He is a graduate of UNC-Pembroke and current MBA student at Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech (Graduate in May! - Whoop Whoop!). You can follow his daily quotes of inspiration and motivation on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIN
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