Human Behavior Expert Says Ignore These 3 Popular Goal-Setting Tips To Make Your Resolutions Stick In 2019

New Year's Resolutions List on Notepad

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It’s the time of year. New Year’s resolutions are on everyone’s minds, and lips, and millions of people swear THIS WILL BE THE YEAR!

It’s not the year. It’s never the year. Usually because they’re adhering to bad advice.

What can you do to better your chances of turning those goals into reality? According to one professional, the quickest way to reach your goals is to ignore most of the advice you’ve read about goal-setting.

Dr. Alok Trivedi is a human behavior and psychological performance expert. He is the founder of the Aligned Performance Institute and author of the book Chasing Success.

Dr. Trivedi believes that most of the advice handed out by self-help specialist will keep people from losing weight, making millions and crushing New Year’s resolutions.

Here are just a few of the common pieces of advice found in TED talks, motivational texts and best-selling books that Dr. Trivedi believes should be ignored this January 1st.

1. DON’T share your goals with others

“When you keep your goals to yourself, it creates an inner drive to achieve them. Telling everyone else what you want to accomplish only puts more pressure on you and makes the process much more difficult to manage. If you feel like sharing, tell other people about your failures. It makes you a humbler person. The other reason to speak about your failures is because there is so much learning in failure for yourself as well as those around you.”

2. LISTEN to negative talk
“All the self-help gurus, while well-intentioned, encourage you to only think positive thoughts. This is unrealistic because you’re living in a fantasy world. Paying attention to your negative self-talk is extremely important because it’s trying to break you of your addiction to that fantasy. The key is to be optimistic about what you want while listening to the negative thoughts because it will keep you grounded in reality.”

3. DUMP the vision board

“These should be called nightmare boards. All they do is slap you in the face and constantly remind you of all the things you haven’t been able to accomplish. Staring at million-dollar mansions, Lamborghinis and super fit models with bulging muscles isn’t going to inspire you for greatness. It’s delusional thinking that will leave feeling down on your luck.”

And finally, Dr. Trivedi offers this little nugget that everyone setting a resolution should hear.

DON’T wait until January 1st.

“Why wait until January 1? Thinking you’re going to make a magical change come the New Year is delusional thinking, gives you more time to indulge in the bad behavior and digs a deeper hole. If you’re really serious about making a change, start right now, this very second.”

[via Aligned Performance Institute]