As the new year begins, are you making resolutions you'll abandon in a month or setting achievable goals? Are you basing your goals on unconscious expectations, or looking forward with a sense of expectancy?

Making Resolutions and Meeting Expectations

At the beginning of a new year people often make resolutions--promises you make to yourself to start doing something good or stop doing something bad. We tend to see the beginning of the new year as a turning point and an opportunity to make some improvements to our lives.

According to a Nielsen poll published in January 2016, Americans' top 5 resolutions were:

* Stay Fit and HealthyLose Weight

* Lose Weight

* Spend Less and Save More

* Live Life to the Fullest

* Spend More Time with Family

I would guess that if they took a poll now at the beginning of 2017, the results would be much the same.

The Challenge of Keeping New Year Resolutions

The problem with new year's resolutions is that most of them are abandoned by February. There are lots of reasons why that might be:

* The resolutions we set are unrealistic.

* There are too many resolutions at the same time.

* We aim for too drastic of a change.

* We expect to change too quickly.

* The resolution is out of sync with the stage of life we are in.

* The resolutions we make aren’t truly important to us--we're "resolving" to do things we think we ought to do.

* The resolutions are poorly defined. Goals need to be specific and measurable so you can know when you have achieved them.

Achieving Our Goals is a Matter of Mindset

In order to set ourselves up for a successful year, we need to take a close look at our expectations — what they are, how we come to them, and what impact they may have on us.

Expectation: a strong belief that something will happen or will be the case in the future; a belief that someone will or should achieve something

Expectations can be negative or positive, realistic or unrealistic, conscious or subconscious. To develop truly productive plans and goals, we need to be aware of our expectations, which requires that we be aware of ourselves, our abilities, and the world around us.

Our expectations (especially those subconscious ones) are shaped by our background and our experiences. According to one source, “Expectations are determined by a combination of experience, cognitive processes, communication with others and cultural norms.” That is, the culture we live in impacts our expectations of ourselves, of others, and of the world. Our life experiences also impact our expectations. If we’ve endured a lot of challenges, those difficult experiences may create negative expectations of how the world works. If, on the other hand, we lived a sheltered and privileged life growing up, that may lead us to expect that things will always come to us easily.

What is the relationship between expectations and resolutions?

Our expectations drive, often without conscious thought, many of the decisions we make, including our resolutions and the goals we set for ourselves. So it behooves us to become more aware of those expectations and evaluate whether they're realistic or not, negative or positive.

For example, say I resolve to lose ten pounds. What may be driving that is the expectation that I’m going to be happier if I’m thinner.

Or maybe I resolve to spend more time with family because I expect that I will feel more con...