Do You Know What You Can Do For Your Life?

Making resolutions to change or start something beneficial is very common when a new year arrives or a new course begins, although turning years is usually also a good time for them.

These purposes aim, or should at least do so, to have a happier life, which is usually related to a healthier and healthier life. Not in vain, losing weight, exercising or quitting smoking are three of the most repeated purposes.

But many think that these purposes are useless, perhaps from their own experience. However, a University of Scranton study revealed that only 8% of New Year’s resolutions are achieved. This low success rate is mainly due to the fact that our purposes tend to focus on self-criticism rather than on real aspirations or desires.

Passing our desires through the filter of self-criticism only sets us up for failure. On the other hand, posing our purposes in another way, as achievable and rewarding goals, is easier to increase the quality of our life, which implies being happier.

6 tips to achieve your goals, live longer and be happier

1.Be more aware

Meditating on our purposes, on what we really want, is a great help in achieving them. We spend too much time worrying about others and many times our purposes are focused on the outside.

This makes us falter, just as our relationships with others falter. Other times, we fail in our purposes because we become dependent on others to achieve them.

However, a conscious reflection on why we want to achieve something will put ourselves at the center , and will prevent any outside element from destroying our efforts and calling our goals into question.

2.Exercises for a healthy mind

Getting in shape is one of the star resolutions every time a new year or a new course begins. However, physical exercise has more rewards than meets the eye. Men sana in corpore sana, Remember?

In this sense, Daniel Siegel and Davi Rock developed a program that consists of seven essential mental activities to do daily and optimize brain mass and create well-being.

One of these activities involves “physical time”, in which people do aerobic exercises aimed at strengthening the brain. This program is called The Healthy Mind Platter.  Exercise not only makes us stronger physically, but also mentally. Aerobic exercise has been shown to help combat stress and depression.

3 get enough sleep

Sleep well, get enough sleep … we won’t get tired of repeating it over and over again. Most of us are aware of the importance of eating well and exercising, another thing is that we do it; however, we have a hard time assimilating that getting enough sleep is important.

Many times we steal time from sleep to work or study, without being aware that a good rest helps us to be much more productive and effective. We feel guilty, we even feel lazy, and we prefer sacrifice. How cruel is that inner voice that torments us, right? Other times, it is procrastination itself that delays our time to get into bed.

According to William C. Dement and Christopher Vaughan , authors of the book The Promise of Sleep, healthy sleep has been empirically shown to be the most important factor in predicting longevity, more influential even than diet, exercise or genetic inheritance. These authors link lack of sleep with heart disease, traffic accidents and “immeasurable mental and psychological handicaps.”

Additionally, research shows that sleep loss impairs our cognitive performance, while a good amount of sleep improves cognition. Sleeping well is something that we should all add to our agenda.

4.Differentiate yourself from the past

Making resolutions is accompanied by a review of what we want to change about ourselves. If you want to change to be happier, to live longer and better, you need to know who you want to be, what life we ​​want to live and why we want it that way, without forgetting to analyze what we have to do to achieve that.

This will help us to differentiate ourselves from the past and not drag it along with us in this new stage. Unintentionally, our new behaviors are often based on the past, which prevented us from moving forward. You have to leave them behind, look forward.

5 challenge your inner critic

Ignore that voice that represses you from doing what you have proposed, the one that tells you that you are not like that, or that nothing happens for not doing what you have proposed one day; that voice that insists on reminding you that you are old enough to do something, that it is too late for you or that the effort is not worth it. T ienes to be able to identify your own inner enemy and fight him. This way you will become stronger and also freer.

6. Towards a lasting change

Take a proactive and positive approach to your goals and give yourself the opportunity to make lasting change. Your purposes and resolutions must be aimed at getting the best out of yourself. You must be brave in your own battle to challenge and overcome deeply ingrained behaviors and set yourself free.

You will live longer. You will live better. You will live happier.