Happy New Year! By now you have made your resolutions to completely turn your life around for the better.  Let me guess… you are planning to pay off ALL your bills, be nicer to ALL your friends, and even loose ALL of your excess weight. Does this sound like a familiar resolution?

Now that you have had 2 days to question your motivation, I’d like to propose a new idea. Alter that resolution and make some goals you can actually obtain, something that won’t drive you crazy in the process.

Example 1 (Debt): Lets say you are 6 thousand dollars in debt, how about resolve to pay off half of that debt in a year? If you save $250 a month that resolution is possible. That is a number that will not freak you out when restructuring your new budget.

Many people think that by saying you will pay off all your debt in a year that this is a good resolution. To me that just means you might be setting yourself up for failure and disappointment in the end. Imagine how happy you will be to say “I just paid off half of my debt!”.

Example 2 (Weight Loss): Want to lose 30 pounds this year? Try your hardest and aim for 15. Anything above 15 will be a huge victory, and will make you excited when you start to see the pounds continue to come off.

You get my point, aiming for the stars is great, but most of the time unrealistic. It is when we set realistic goals that we are most likely to achieve them. If you are lucky enough to obtain these realistic goal by the middle of the year, make some new ones around summer time.

Good Luck.