7 Reasons Why You Should Be Making an Anti-Resolution for the New Year

Year after year, we make resolutions. And, year after year, many of us fail to make those changes a reality.

Why is that? And what can you do about it?

For many of us, we’re coerced by society to make December both a time of holiday enjoyment and reflection to set goals for the New Year. It’s difficult to do both of those things at once and this often leads us to spend no more than the last day or two of the year (if that, can’t forget New Years celebrations) reflecting on what we’d like to change for the entire upcoming year.

What results is us setting extremely generalized and practically unattainable goals. Unattainable not due to difficulty but because we never clarified exactly what we wanted and rather put ourselves down to, “get my body back,” or “build a successful online business.”

Instead of feeling forced to create new goals at the beginning of the year and setting a New Year’s resolution, how about cleaning up shop instead?

It’s the end of the year after all, why not use the New Year as a time to get rid of all those things in your life that you believe are unnecessary or holding you back? Think of it as a way to refresh your efforts year-round more so than feeling like you have to realign your thinking just because everyone else is.

That’s where an anti-resolution comes in. An anti-resolution is a commitment to stop doing something. Specifically, to stop doing something you’ve been doing over the previous year like using social media way too much.

Ultimately, it’s about identifying the things that need to change in your life and deciding to make a change rather than setting a goal to accomplish something new.

7 Anti-Resolutions for 2019

There’s a powerful quality in resolving to stop doing something you’re already doing rather than setting yourself to accomplish some new, big goal.

It feels more attainable and concrete and they’re often the kinds of things that are holding you back already, so they can help improve the results in the rest of your life by working on them.

Having said that, here are seven anti-resolutions you can make for 2019:

1. Stop letting things go without speaking up

Are you the kind of person that lets people get away with things without speaking up? Resolve for 2019 to be the year that you step forward with courage.

If you’re used to letting people walk over you and you’ve had enough, this is a powerful anti-resolution. It’s about standing up for yourself once and for all and taking control back.

2. Stop saying yes to everyone

If you’re the kind of person that finds it had to say no to anyone, this could be the perfect anti-resolution for you.

The desire to please everyone is a beautiful quality but you need to keep it in check. If you’re not taking care of yourself enough and saying yes to everyone is holding you back from making your own progress (which, in most cases, will help you help others more), it’s time to stop saying yes to everyone.

3. Stop living on social

No matter which is your poison, social media can literally take over your life if you allow it to. However, amassing likes, followers, and keeping up with your social circle isn’t going to make you happier. In fact, it’s probably going to do the opposite.

So, if you’re done spinning your wheels and want to start truly investing in yourself in 2019, then this could be your perfect anti-resolution.

4. Stop giving excuses

If you tend to give excuses for your actions or the behavior of others, resolve to stop allowing excuses to hold power over your life any longer.

Excuses are a slippery slope. The moment you give one, you convince yourself that power is outside your control and that you can only do so much to help your circumstances. But as soon as the excuses stop and you take responsibility you take your power back– and things change for the better.

5. Stop procrastinating

Are there things you wanted to do in 2018 that you either never got around to or have only made slow, gradual progress on when you could have gotten much further along?

If you find yourself putting off important things for weeks on end before taking action, make your resolution to fight back against this procrastination and infuse your life with some meaning and purpose.

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