How to Have a Successful Resolution /Re: New Years resolutions

[Tonks]

> Sharon:
> You know, I don't usually make resolutions, but yours is a very 
good one!  I stopped making resolutions years ago because I always 
broke them in the first week (well, january 1st if I'm honest). But 
this year I really want to be more productive, so I think I will 
join you in your new year's resolution and try to stop 
procrastinating!
> 

Tonks:
I have always been very successful at New Years Resolutions. Not 
each one, but I usually achieve most of them. 

Allow me to be so bold as to offer a word of advise. I use to be a 
Psychotherapist and we had to write treatment goals for our clients. 
If you want to stop procrastinating, the thing to do is ask yourself 
what is the opposite of procrastantion. Your subconcious mind will 
help you to achieve your goal, but it can't do a negative. Your goal 
has to be phrased in postive terms. What you WANT to do, not what 
you don't want to do. So as an example you might say your goal is: 
To be puctual. Or something else, use your own words that mean 
something to you. (I am late to everything and don't really care, so 
that would not be a good resolution for me.) But you get the idea.

When you have your goal in a term that in meaningful to you, you are 
going to ask yourself what are the small steps that you have to take 
to get there. If it were to be on time, you might start with "I will 
be on time for each weekly staff meeting". Or if a project, "I will 
get one project done by the due date, this month/ or each week". or 
whatever makes sense to you. 

This is something that you are actually able to do instead of a 
global 'stop procrastinating'. And it is something that you can 
measure. And as you succeed day by day or week by week, you will be 
reinforcing the behavior that you want and creating a new habit to 
replace the old one. 

Good luck to everyone with their resolutions this year. As the 
saying goes "everyday, in every way, we are getting better and 
better".

Cheers!

Tonks_op