Make your New Year Resolutions Real!

New Year Resolutions: Why Some Achieve Theirs, Others Give up

Here's wishing you all a Very Happy New Year!

When we make our New Year resolutions, most of us are driven by what we think we should do (lose weight, give up smoking, find a better job, etc). Some of us have strong will power (a left brain activity), and will drag ourselves out of our bed at 6 AM to visit the gym or throw away all the cigarette packets or go on a diet. And most of us will follow these new regimes and changed lifestyle for a few weeks or months and then suddenly find dozens of reasons why we can’t continue: need to spend more time with family, my boss being horrible in office, girlfriend not liking 6 AM wake up call, the lousy English weather, Gordon Brown’s economic policy, global recession, and so on.

And then back to life as usual. Until next time.

How many times do you think that people try to achieve their new goals before they give up? The average is less than one time. Most people give up even before making the first attempt.

In his book What They Don’t Teach You In The Harvard Business School, the author describes a research conducted between 1979 and 1989 on students graduating out of the school. In 1979, the graduates of the MBA programme were asked if they had set clear, written goals for future and made plans to accomplish them. Only 3% of the graduates reported having written goals and plans, and another 13% had stated that they had goals, but not in written form. The rest 84% had no specific goals at all, apart from their focus on graduating out of the management school.

A decade later, in 1989, the same members of the class who had by then settled in their career were interviewed again. The researchers found that the 13% who had goals, albeit unwritten, were earning on average twice as much as the 84% of students who had no clear goals in 1979. But the most surprising findings was that the 3% of graduates who had clear, written goals and plans when they left Harvard were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97% of graduates who had no written goals.

What makes written goals so powerful? Read full story


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Result Achievers, January 2010

Here's wishing a very Happy New Year to all our readers.

This issue of our monthly newsletter carries several case stories and vital tips on setting goals and personal effectiveness. We decided on this theme of goal-setting for a particular reason. New year celebrations over, most of us have made our New Year resolutions and set our goals for the year. But how many of us will stay focused throughout the year on achiveing them? Well, if you believe statisticians, only one in ten of us! If you want proof, ask your neighbourhood gym managers and fitness trainers - come January, they can't cope with new membership applications, but by April they have difficulty keeping all the instructors busy and employed.

In What They Don't Teach You in the Harvard Business School, the author describes a study Read full story


Results Matter now has a branch in India

Starting Janaury 2010, we have a branch in India. Led by Tapas K.Datta, a former senior official with the United Nations, this branch focuses on delivering high value consulting and training services to our existing and new clients in India.Our main focus will be on providing social development consulting and leadership and management development services, working with both private and public sector.


Five Questions that can save you tens of thousands of pounds

Consultants do not come cheap for their time and expertise. Especially for small businesses and charities, the money they sometimes have to fork out for consultants' help with particular problems can cause not-so-small a hole in their budget. Parkinson's Law of work expanding to fill the time also sometimes applies to consultancies as well. Read full story