4 Steps To Achieve Your New Year’s Plan

September 16, 2022

If you haven’t heard Benjamin Franklin’s quote,” If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail,” you should. Particularly at the beginning of a year, many people make New Year plan because it often feels like a fresh start, a chance to kick bad habits and establish new routines.

If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.

Benjamin Franklin

However, studies have shown that less than 25% of people stay committed to their plan after just 30 days, and only 8% accomplish them.

On September 7, 2022, Typicalethiopian.com conducted a poll on its telegram channel to collect information about what its followers are planning for the Ethiopian New Year 2015. Within a week, more than 650 people voted in the telegram poll. Here is the result.

The poll’s survey results as of September 15, 2022, one week after it was first launched, are as follows: According to the survey,

  • 26% of the respondents planned to get closer to God
  • 24% to learn something new
  • 13% to break bad habits
  • 9% to read more
  • 6% to save more and spend less
  • 5% to gain weight
  • 4% to lose weight, and
  • only 2% to spend more time with family and friends.
  • Moreover, 11% of the respondents admitted that they haven’t planned anything for the New Year.

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In this article, we’ll go over James Clear’s highly anticipated book Atomic Habits and provide you with actionable advice on how to execute your New Year plans more effectively. James Clear, in his book Atomic Habits, describes how every habit goes through 4 stages:

  • Cue,
  • Craving,
  • Response, and
  • Reward.

CUE (Make it visible): It triggers your brain to initiate a behavior.

Choosing the correct trigger is essential. For Example: If you want to read more, make the cues visible by placing the books around the house in places you are likely to see them. 

CRAVING (Make it attractive): It is the motivational force behind every habit.

The more desirable and appealing a habit is, the more motivated you’ll feel to stick with it. For instance, if I wanted to make reading a book appealing, I could join book reader groups. By doing so, the activity would be more attractive to me and I would be more motivated to do it.

RESPONSE (Make it easy): It is the actual behavior that is performed.

The easier, simpler, more convenient, and frictionless a habit is, the more likely you are to give a response and perform it. For example, if you’re training for a half-marathon, just focus on putting your running shoes on. It’s an easy action to take, and once you’ve made it that far you are much more likely to continue and go for a run.

REWARD (Make it satisfying): It is the end goal of every habit.

If a behavior is not rewarding or satisfying in some sense, it’s unlikely to become a habit because we lack a reason to repeat the behavior in the future. But, the more rewarding and satisfying action is, the more likely we are to repeat it until it becomes a habit. For example, if I want to develop the habit of reading, I could give myself a reward like, “If I read a book for 5 minutes, then I can watch Netflix after that.”

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Written by Sophonias Woldu

Sophonias Woldu is an Ethiopian author with an outstanding skill for crafting unique and captivating articles that explore different aspects of life. He had an inquisitive mind from a young age and was always fascinated by the power of language and words. He writes articles about philosophy, theology, his native Ethiopia, and basically anything and everything else. Before embarking on a writing career, he had already begun a successful career in the electromechanical engineering field, having earned his degree from Addis Ababa Science and Technology University. In addition to being a prolific writer, Sophonias is also a public speaker and tech enthusiast who believes in harnessing technology to improve the lives of Ethiopians. Currently, Sophonias writes articles for www.typicalethiopian.com on a part-time basis.

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