How to Stay True to Your New Year Resolution

The New Year is an exciting time; a brand new, 365 days to achieve dreams and goals. For many of us, the promise of the New Year can make us set some lofty resolutions and in the past, you may have not followed through. But if you’re looking for some follow through this year, keep reading below to learn about some tips that can help you stay true to your New Year Resolutions!

Are you an aging senior looking to start 2019 off a little safer, a little more independent and maybe a little more confident while living at-home? Well, Life Alert is here to help make your New Year Resolution come true. While wearing their lightweight, waterproof emergency pendant, you can summon help fast with just one touch of a button. No matter if you experience a home invasion, a home fire or even a serious fall, Life Alert’s dispatch team is available to send you the proper authorities fast, 24/7. Not only can LifeAlert help you to achieve your personal protection resolution, but it can help you to stay true to it all year long!

Let 2019 be your year of change; the year you make all your goals come true! How? Lifehack[1] has 10 tips you can use to set a goal and achieve it. Read below to make 2019 yours!

1. Tell People about Your Resolutions

By telling people about your resolutions, you are consciously committing to them. Just think about it: If you’ve told someone you’re going to do something, people are going to be expecting you to do it. You’ve not just made the commitment to you, you’ve made it to everyone you’ve told. Another nice benefit of telling people about your resolutions is the support that comes with it. When the right people know about your resolution, they’ll stand behind you in achieving it. They’ll act as a support net, to spur you on even when you think you can’t do it.

2. Clarify Your Resolutions

Ensure that your resolution can be actively tracked. Take, for example, a resolution of reading more. This is too vague. How will you know when you’ve achieved this goal? Will you be satisfied with reading a book once a month? A week? A day? The only way to know if you’ve achieved your resolution is by clarifying them so that they’re achievable. If you want to read more, then you’re far better off setting a tangible and achievable goal — such as reading two books a month. You can track your progress, you’ll know if you’ve slacked on it, and you’ll know if you’ve achieved it!

3. Make a Plan

Tying into point 2, about clarifying them. Once clarified, you can then create a plan to break down the clarified goal into smaller sub-goals that you can achieve daily. If you imagine your resolution as small, actionable steps, the achievement of the goal becomes a lot more feasible in your head. Take the reading example. If you want to read 100 books a year, that could seem pretty overwhelming. If you break that down to reading one book every 4 days, it becomes a lot more realistic. This way you can also actively monitor your progress, and you’ll know whether or not you’re on target to meet it.

4. Re-Frame Your Resolutions

Your resolution should not be putting you down. Don’t allow your resolution to become a passive way of saying, “I won’t be good enough until I achieve this.” This is a sure-fire way to become demotivated by the idea of achieving them, and can really get you down in the long-run. Take a new perspective on goals. Remind yourself that you’re good enough, each and every day and that your goals are just serving as a means to be better. You’re not doing it to be enough, you’re doing it to be MORE. That’s the kind of perspective that really begins to push your preconceived limits.

5.  Stop focusing on the end result

The idea of the goals can often feel like we’re holding them at arm’s length. As though we should just achieve them and we’re done. When we commit to the process, the journey, of the goal, however, it’s a lot easier to make it an enjoyable experience. The goal is in the distance, getting there is where our focus needs to be. You can’t constantly be looking at the map to see your end destination while driving, otherwise you’ll crash on the way there.

6. Know When to Take a Break

Burning out is a very real possibility when you’re not taking breaks. Find the time each day to let your mind relax. No goal or resolution should consume your mind from the moment of waking to the moment of sleep. Taking effective breaks has also been shown to increase our productivity. With that said, checking your social media accounts and watching TV are not breaks for the mind – they’re probably more stressful. Meditate, sing, take a walk, have a shower, do a small workout or something similar instead.

7. Push Yourself

There’s a great quote by Bruce Lee that says: “If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.” How this relates to reaching your resolutions is very simple: there will be plateaus in your progress towards achieving them. There will be points where you’re uncertain that you can really achieve what you’ve set out to do. Not just in your New Year’s resolutions but in life, in general. This is where you need to push yourself. You can’t accept “no” for an answer. Dig deep, find the will within to push past the plateau. Discouragement can become fuel when we allow it to be. Setbacks can become fuel when we allow them to be. You’ve simply got to keep pushing. You will achieve it. Tell yourself you’ll excel. You’ll be surprised how much more capable you really are.

8. Reward yourself

Temptation bundling is a strangely, yet unsurprisingly, simple way to push yourself to achieve more. The premise is simple, tie what you want to achieve (but seem to be struggling to do so) with a reward, and get the reward each time you work towards the goal. A good example, as demonstrated in this somewhat contradictory post, is your workout. If you really enjoy listening to audiobooks, but don’t like working out, and your resolution is to workout more frequently – limit your audiobook listening time to the gym. If you like your audiobooks enough, it’ll spur you on to actually go workout.

9. Don’t give in to the critic

You’re going to have doubters. They’re a part of life. So why not use them to motivate and encourage you? Now okay, it’s probably not best to be striving to achieve something out of spite…people will try to bind you to their own self-set limitations. Take their criticism, and tell yourself that you’re not bound by what they’re bound to. Go out, make it happen, achieve it. Then, when all is said and done, go back to the critic and respectfully tell them of your achievement, and thank them for their help. Not only will you have achieved something, but you have the potential to help another being evaluate why they’ve set such limits for themselves. It’s a win-win. (Plus you can be a little smug, but only a little.)

10. Celebrate Your Achievements

Forget what others think about it, if you’re happy about the progress you’re making, you have every right to celebrate it and shout it from the rooftops. It’ll only empower you to continue pursuing that goal. So there you have it, 10 tips for actually sticking to and achieving your New Year’s resolutions.

Whether you’re looking to reach a weight loss goal, a travel goal or even a lifestyle change, use the tips above to help make your 2019 resolutions a reality! But, if great personal protection is what you’re after this New Year, let Life Alert help make your dream come true. That’s right, with the safety of Life Alert’s emergency pendant by your side, you can harness the power of 24/7 at-home safety. Simply slip the lightweight, waterproof pendant around your neck or wrist and in the event of a life threatening emergency, push the button on your pendant and summon an emergency medical response fast. Make 2019 a year of confidence, independence and safety by getting Life Alert Protection today! Call 1-800-513-2934 for a free Life Alert brochure.

Works Cited:

1.       Mcspirit, Jake. “10 Tips For Making New Year’s Resolutions Come True.” Lifehack. <https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/10-tips-for-making-new-years-resolutions-come-true.html >.

---

[1]

Tis’ the Season for Giving

Looking to spread some holiday cheer this year by giving back? Maybe you want to make a charitable donation to your favorite non-profit, but before you do, make sure you know the important things below before doing so.

Giving back always feels good, but nothing feels better than giving yourself the personal protection you deserve. If you are an aging senior who is looking to maintain your independence and boost your at-home confidence, it is time to look into Life Alert Protection. While wearing their emergency pendant you can harness the power of 24/7 protection. Should you encounter a home invasion, a home fire or even a serious fall, simply push the button on your pendant and summon an emergency medical response fast. Give yourself something special this season and get Life Alert Protection today!

Being selfless can feel satisfying, but with a hectic holiday schedule it may be hard to explore what non-profit you want to contribute to. Luckily, Real Simple[1] asked leading philanthropic experts to come up with a set of straightforward criteria for separating the best from the rest. Find your perfect charity by continuing to read below.

Make Sure That You Understand the Charity’s Mission

On websites and in literature for nonprofits, vague, lofty rhetoric abounds. Groups might pledge to “aid the impoverished nationwide” or “eradicate disease.” And that’s fine, as long as that ambitious language is accompanied by real-world specifics. “Legitimate charities typically give detailed program descriptions on their websites,” according to Bennett Weiner, the chief operating officer of the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance, a monitoring and standards-setting organization for charities. That means you should expect to find the following information clearly delineated: how each of the nonprofit’s initiatives is run; what benchmarks have been achieved by those programs in the past; how many people are served by the initiatives; and how a potential client qualifies to receive a service. If such nitty-gritty information is absent, contact the group’s program manager. She should be able to provide you with those facts and figures. If she can’t, consider it a red flag and donate your money elsewhere.

Verify the Group’s Nonprofit Status

You want a charity that has been granted a 501(c)(3) designation by the Internal Revenue Service. Why? This means that the donations that the group receives are used for charitable purposes; that your gifts to the organization are tax-deductible; that the group makes financial information public; and that strict rules govern how much it can spend to lobby the government. It’s simple to determine if a group is a 501(c)(3): Go to GuideStar.org, a nonprofit database, and enter the name. Bear in mind that just because a website ends in .org doesn’t mean that the group is a legitimate nonprofit. If the organization isn’t a 501(c)(3), move on, because your donation might not be tax-deductible.

Inquire About the Charity’s Spending Ratio

When you donate, you want your money to make a difference—not pay for office furniture for the charity’s director. A rule of thumb: The most efficient organizations spend at least 75 percent of their budgets on programs and services (this is referred to as the “spending ratio”), with the remainder going toward administration and fund-raising costs, says Debra Snider, the vice president of operations for GuideStar.org, an informational database of nonprofit organizations. Obviously, the higher the spending ratio, the better, since it illustrates the charity’s productivity. You can easily find this information by looking at a nonprofit’s financial analysis on CharityNavigator.org. (The site updates charities’ financial data annually, and some accountability figures are updated monthly, so don’t worry that you’re not getting the most up-to-date information.) If you have further questions about how the group spends its money, contact it directly and ask to see the most recent annual report. Often it’s available on the organization’s website. But what if the non-profit you’re interested in doesn’t meet the 75 percent spending ratio? Experts say the group might still be worth considering if it’s undergoing capital improvements, such as building a new office; if it’s a start-up, whose expenses are typically higher; or if it’s located in a big city, where administrative costs can eat up a bigger chunk of the overall budget. So you need to exercise judgment in these cases.

Look for Accountability and Transparency Practices

Well-run charities should be open about their management, with a CEO and a governing board that includes people who aren't part of the charity to allow for objective analysis. The Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance and CharityNavigator.org evaluate charities on this criterion, presenting the information in easy-to-read checklists. Most groups mention any religious associations in their mission statements but may be less forthcoming about political affiliations or any positions they’ve taken on legislation. If you’re concerned, look at the charity’s annual report, which should disclose how much money, if any, goes toward lobbying or political action.

 Ask About Results

Most responsible midsize to large organizations use either self- or third-party assessments to evaluate their efficiency and effectiveness. (You can contact the charity to request the most recent one.) Take a jobs program, for example. You want to know not only that the group found positions for 100 people but also that one year later a realistic percentage—say, 50 percent—were still employed. And what if you’re interested in donating to a brand-new charity with bold ideas but not much of a track record? Elizabeth Gore, the former vice president of Global Partnerships for the United Nations Foundation, a nonprofit that works with the United Nations, suggests that you take a leap and send a check, as long as the group meets the other criteria on these pages. After all, she says, “some of those charities’ innovations could lead to revolutionary, long-term change.”

Many would agree that giving to others, especially those in need, feels good. Go out and enjoy the season of giving, but when you get home give your selfless self a little self-love by getting Life Alert. While wearing their lightweight, waterproof emergency pendant you can maintain your at-home safety.

Should you encounter a life threatening emergency, simply push the button on your pendant and summon help fast, 24/7. This year, give into your needs and get Life Alert today! Call 1-800-513-2934 for a free LifeAlert brochure.

Works Cited:

1.       Taui, Bonnie. “The 5 Essential Things You Need to Know Before Making Charitable Donations.” Real Simple. 30 November 2018. <https://www.realsimple.com/work-life/money/charitable-donations-0 >.

---

[1]