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Author: Christine Carter

Happiness Tip: Make a Really Specific Plan

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Photo by Carrie Eberhardt

If you are setting New Year’s resolutions this year, whether or not you are able to keep your resolutions will depend on how detailed a plan you make for your new behavior.

A large meta-analysis of eighty-five studies found that when people make a specific plan for what they’d like to do or change, anticipating obstacles if possible, they do better than 74 percent of people who don’t make a specific plan for the same task. In other words, making a specific action plan dramatically increases the odds that you’ll follow through.

Take Action: Take a minute to write down a specific plan for your resolution. What exactly will you do?

Join the Discussion: What do you find most challenging about starting a resolution or habit? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Need support for your resolutions? Be sure to sign up for my free online class — you’ll get a worksheet and an email every day for 21 days that will support you in keeping your New Year’s resolutions.

 

Need help making your resolutions??? Enter to win a free coaching session!

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Photo by Snapshooter46

Know what one of my very favorite things to do is? I LOVE coaching people through making New Year’s resolutions. Sign up for Cracking the Habit Code (free when you order The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work) and we’ll enter you in a random drawing to win free coaching with me, Christine Carter!

Cracking the Habit Code: 21 Days to Keeping Your Resolutions will help you keep your resolutions in 10 minutes a day or less. We’ll send you a worksheet and a short email every day for 21 days that will guide you through the process of getting into a good habit.

Enroll now…

Free Online Class!

SweetSpot_10.30B-1 (1)We’re excited to offer a completely revised version of my most popular online class ever as a gift for ordering The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work.

Cracking the Habit Code: 21 Days to Keeping Your Resolutions teaches critical skills for starting a new habit and, importantly, keeping it.

The class is now easier and even more effective — just as much learning, but far less effort. We’ll send you a worksheet and a short email every day for 21 days that will guide you through making a resolution that you can keep.

Register Now

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Happiness Tip: Establish a Tiny Habit

Do you have resolutions you’d like to make this week?

Maybe you’d like to read or workout more, or remember to call your mom on Mondays. My best advice is to start by picking just one ridiculously easy habit to work on. Start with what Stanford habit researcher BJ Fogg calls a “tiny habit.” The reason that I want you to think small is that deliberate habit formation is a skill. Starting with a tiny habit is like learning to dog paddle before you learn the breast stroke.

Here are some of Fogg’s suggestions for tiny habits:

“After I pour my morning coffee, I will text my mom.”

“After I start the dishwasher, I will read one sentence from a book.”

“After I walk in my front door from work, I will get out my workout clothes.”

I know, I know: tiny habits seem so tiny. By necessity, they need to be ridiculously easy, and this makes them feel trivial and unimportant. But tiny habits are about skill building, and about inching your way towards the bigger resolutions you made in the year.

Take Action: Pick something small, like taking a daily vitamin, or flossing just one tooth (that’s BJ Fogg’s suggested starter habit) — anything that takes less than 30 seconds, requires little physical effort, little money, and doesn’t require that you go against a social norm (like flossing in the public bathroom). It should take little time, but not require that you time yourself (e.g., floss my teeth for 30 seconds), because timing yourself is a hassle. This tiny habit needs to be something that you do at least once a day — no exceptions.

Join the Discussion: What’s your tiny habit going to be? List it here and I will help you format it correctly.