With the New Year approaching, a lot of you are probably thinking about goals. Specifically, New Year's resolutions. And with good reason – many of us have great intentions when it comes to our resolutions. But of the 41% of Americans who make New Year's resolutions, only 9% are successful in keeping them. Yikes.
If New Year's resolutions seem like a thorn in your side, you’re not alone. 91% of New Year’s Resolutions fail, and most get ditched before March 1st.
Instead of setting yourself up to fail… What if there was a better, easier way to follow through and get the results you want?
Keep reading to find out the top reasons New Year’s Resolutions fail, how it applies to all goals, and see my simple 3-step plan to ensure that never happens to you again.
Plus, for a super limited time, you can unlock my complete Goal + Intention Setting Workshop* (normally $97) + action planner workbook that serves as your personal 90-day blueprint for just $20.23.
With the workshop and this guide, your 2023 goals will practically be a guarantee.
Why Our New Year's Resolutions Always Fail
It seems like New Year's resolutions fail at a higher rate than normal goals. Like I mentioned above, only NINE PERCENT (nine freaking percent!) of people actually see their New Year's resolutions through.
One of the main reasons I see people fall out of their resolutions is lack of vision. This is fundamentally poor goal setting. Lack of vision and lack of intention lead to not having a doable plan that fits into how you actually live your life.
Because with New Year’s resolutions, soooo many people want to completely revamp everything, instead of figuring out how to set achievable, actionable goals that fit into their life. They create these lofty goals they THINK they want… but aren’t actually meaningful. Or true. Or based in reality.
There’s zero INTENTION to them and very little forethought on the sustainable HOW aspect.
That’s what I set out to address when I created my OWN Goal + Intention Setting Workshop. My signature workshop shows you how to create a vision and then set intentional goals from a soul-deep level – for both your life and biz.
My 3 Life-Changing Hacks for Setting and Keeping Your Goals
Now that you know why New Year’s resolutions always fail, let’s get into the hacks for actually achieving them this year.
These hacks are for real. They aren’t about blindly following my roadmap for success. It’s about creating your OWN action plan – following a specific framework I offer you. Once you complete my 1-hour Goal + Intention Setting Workshop, you’ll have ditched overwhelm for clarity. You’ll have a customized action plan that’s doable for you – based on your unique lifestyle and priorities.
Normally I offer this virtual workshop for $97…
But as a special incentive to get started on your goals NOW – and do it the RIGHT way, so you’re actually set up for concrete results, it’s available to ya for only $20.23. Like 2023. Get it?
Hack 1: Identify WHY You’re Not Taking Action
This hack is one of the hardest. And FYI, it’s not about making surface-level excuses or the “reasons” you may tell yourself. You’ve got tons of stories you make up. Just like me. I want you to go deeper than that.
Now – Be. Honest.
- What are you avoiding?
- Do you REALLY want the thing you say you want?
- What beliefs, fears, or insecurities are stopping you from making a change?
Once you can answer those questions with complete honesty, breakthroughs happen. Trust me. You can apply conscious action to overcome whatever that thing is. For example, let’s say you want to drop some excess pounds. This is a super common resolution.
You probably have stories you tell yourself about how you got here:
- Working too much.
- The holidays.
- Stress.
- Don’t have time or money to go workout.
- Family obligations, blah blah blah.
You may use the word “reasons” – I use “stories”. But you know a great thing about stories?
THEY GET TO BE REWRITTEN.
The beautiful thing about coaches is that we literally don’t give a flying eff WHY you are where you are. Coaching is all about “What are you gonna do from HERE – to get where you wanna GO?” As in: the present and the future.
It’s good to know the past for context, but we don’t dwell there. So stop looking in the rear-view mirror. The best place to be is right here. Right now.
SO, in the case of saying you wanna get back into fighting shape, to have more energy, live longer, look and FEEL better…
The key is to understand the REAL WHY behind the lack of results.
Ask the ugly questions. And give the ugly answers. Try these:
- Does it seem like too much work?
- Do you believe you’re gonna work super hard and not have the outcome you want?
- Does it feel like not getting the result you want will deem you a “failure”?
- Will it say something about you that you’re afraid to share with the world?
- Is someone ELSE telling you that you need a particular goal… and it’s simply not an actual priority for you at the moment?
A ton of us – especially women – have been taught that our real answers are wrong. They’re ugly. They’re bad. We can’t say what we really feel or think. So instead, we train ourselves to be fake. To pretend. To LIE. This is a huge part of why New Year’s resolutions always fail.
The idea of hard work is one many of us pretend we care about… but don’t actually want. If we were honest about that – said the ugly truth out loud – we would actually be free. Full disclaimer: this is hard to do.
But you’re not average.
You’re born for more.
You get to dig deeper.
Ask yourself the hard questions.
Allow yourself to FEEL and ACKNOWLEDGE the discomfort for a minute. And then make new choices that suit who you truly desire to be.
Hack 2: Attach Rewards or Incentives to Your Actions
Once you have your goals and you have your plan, attach rewards or incentives to your actions. It’s a sneaky way to hold yourself accountable, and actually hack your brain chemistry to do it.
There’s a chemical inside our brains called dopamine – it’s our feel-good hormone. When you attach an incentive to your goal – something you really really want – like a VIP pass to Disney (lol) or tickets to Bruce Springsteen’s potentially last tour, your brain shoots out little doses of dopamine to help you get there.
It’s like dangling a super juicy carrot. Then, when you actually ACCOMPLISH your goal, BOOM – you get a big ol’ hit of dopamine. That way, you’re amped to do it again… and again… and again.
This is actually what makes games and other things so addictive. They tap into the natural rewards center we all have and our innate desire to win and create the cycle of behavior they want.
So this is how you can create a HEALTHY addiction cycle to achieve any goal or desire you want.
Hack 3: Plan Your Routine
This last hack is more tactical and practical. And sure, a little less exciting, but not less important, since ignoring it is a major reason why New Year’s resolutions always seem to fail.
It’s to plan your routine.
Ask yourself what needs to happen with your current time management systems to CREATE time to execute your goals. As my friend, Marie Forleo says, “If it ain't calendared, it ain't happening.”
Ask yourself:
- What do you get to shift on your calendar to create time?
- Is getting up an hour earlier the best plan for you?
- Is offloading other responsibilities gonna carve out time you need?
- Are there activities you could stop doing entirely to generate more space for your goals?
Inside my
Goal + Intention Setting Workshop (
available now for only $20.23!), I help you go through this process to identify the blindspots, blocks, and habits holding you back. It’s like magic!
I gotta tell ya, one of the top revelations people who complete this class tell me is that they’re shocked by how easy it is to CREATE time. They reduce their busy-ness and still get all their shit done while being HAPPIER.
Without realizing it, most of us waste tons of time each day, or we’re unrealistic with our time, which leads to over-committing and under-delivering.
The good news is YOU are the designer of your days. Sure, you have commitments. We all do. But in the Goal + Intention Setting Workshop, I’ll help you break through this mindset, create new habits to jumpstart your results, and begin to get more done with less effort so you have the space and energy to put toward your goals.
Best of all, you’ll walk away with your own complete 90-day action plan to follow. This is the plan you create for yourself. I’m simply your guide, helping clear out all those stories holding you back and getting you to your true ROOT desires.
I’m offering you the simplest, easiest path to make it all happen, based on what’s important to YOU.
If you’re ready to unlock the complete
Goal + Intention Setting Workshop AND the action planner workbook RIGHT NOW for just $20.23 – down from $97 – for a super limited time, it’s waiting for you at
www.hayleyhobson.com/2023.
Or drop the word GOALS on any of my social posts. I’ll see the link, shoot ya a DM, and you’re off to the races.
These goal setting hacks will get you off to a great start in 2023. For now, that’s a wrap on 2022 my friends. Happy New Year and I’ll see ya on the other side in 2023.