According to popular belief, most New Year resolutions are as dead as Matt Hancock's soul by the third week of January.
So the bad news is that promises we make can often be difficult to keep. But the good news is that resolutions don’t just have to be made as we’re belting out the last verse of Auld Lang Syne. We all know dogs aren't just for Christmas and New Year’s resolutions aren't exclusively for New Year.
This self-imposed start date may not be the right time to make the promise; the environment and context of your decision to start or stop something massively affects your chances of success.
So if you have dropped the ball already, don't be as stressed as a senior leader who accidentally skipped one slide ahead in a PowerPoint presentation. Choose another date where the circumstance may be more helpful and you’ll be more likely to succeed.
Don’t put off until tomorrow, what you can start today
When elite sports stars need to tweak their performance in order to improve a golf swing, tennis serve or penalty kick, they don’t wait until next week, next month or when there’s a full moon, they act on it immediately.
They also never make big or sudden changes, but actually small subtle and often incremental ones.
In my speeches, I teach that the key ingredient of success is choice. Empowering and equipping people to ‘choose’ their way to greater success will inevitably result in a higher success rate. You’re also unlikely to achieve what you set out to do if you are not 100% invested in making the change.
It’s important to understand the best athletes know that they have to learn to lose, to be able to learn how to win. By experiencing failure and evaluating how to try to be better from that, allows us not to see success and failure as outcomes, but an essential part of change.
Why do New Year resolutions fail?
There are many reasons we give up on our well-intended resolutions and the promise(s) we’ve made to ourselves, from setting unrealistic goals and aiming for perfection to peer pressure, lack of motivation and trying too hard – too much, too quickly – instead of making smaller more realistic changes.
To do differently, we have to think differently. We all want to be better, but how do we turn our thoughts into powerful drivers of relevant and meaningful lasting actions?
To find out how I can help you or your company, speak to the team at NMP Live, who are resolute to giving me more bookings in 2025.
Jamil Qureshi is a globally recognised speaker and expert on all aspects of the psychology of performance, people, leadership, business transformation and change techniques, and has helped six sports people get to world number 1.
In business and industry, Jamil has worked from CEO and board level to middle management in a variety of sectors. He has worked with business leaders and companies in over 24 countries, helping teams to fulfil their potential by nurturing alignment and communication among employees, orchestrating change and performance programmes and ultimately increasing profitability.
In addition to keynote talks, Jamil is able to deliver bespoke workshops for employees across all levels of a business with previous clients including Coca Cola, Hewlett Packard, Emirates Airlines and Lloyds Banking Group.
For more information on Jamil Qureshi, you can view his profile here, enquire online, email us or pick up the phone and speak to one of our booking agents.
