New Year's Resolution Tips: Make it Manageable and Don't Sweat the Dates
With the new year comes New Year's resolutions. In this segment from Industry Focus, Motley Fool analysts Dylan Lewis and Michael Douglass share some advice to accomplish the resolutions you set -- from keeping your goals limited and realistic to not psyching yourself out if you don't meet them by a certain date.
A full transcript follows the video.
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This podcast was recorded on Jan. 13, 2017.
Dylan Lewis: A couple other things I think you'll notice with people that I think are successful with their resolutions, you want to keep things fairly realistic. My list last year was only three items. My list this year for personal finance-related resolutions, three items. I think yours was also three.
Michael Douglass: Yep.
Lewis: You want a pretty manageable list. Know yourself and how much time you really want to commit to something. Even as someone that loves the stock market, investing, and personal finance, I know that I can only bite off so much with this stuff.
Douglass: And what I'll add to that is, if you think, dear listener, that three resolutions is too few, make three anyway. If you finish them all by mid-year, cool, take yourself out for a nice dinner and then make three more. There's nothing saying you have to make [all of] your resolutions right now and then carry them through for the year. Have yourself a little New Year's party with some champagne in June if you manage to do it all by then.
Lewis: January 1st, 2017 is a societal construct, man [laughs]. That's a good thing to keep in mind, though. To that point, use the new year as a force for good. Don't fall two months into 2017 and be like, "Ugh, it's a lost cause, 2017 can't be the year that I get it together." No, you still have 10 months left in 2017! Choose to reset when you need to reset. Some people, myself included, love having the turning of the calendar page into the new year as that reminder and that opportunity. But, if things don't work out early in the year, you can still do this at any other point.
Douglass: Right. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes you're going to fall off, whether it's budgeting or dieting. Everybody has their day at work where it's like, "Oh man, somebody brought in chocolate cheesecake and fried chicken, and I just... aw, it's gone." That doesn't mean you can't get back on track the next day.
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