making those resolutions stick

The New Year means new resolutions. To eat better, get fit, organize our lives, learn new skills, read more, be online less…the list goes on and on. Unfortunately, by the second week in January about 30% of people will have given up and, by June, over 50% will have abandoned their enthusiastically made resolutions. That doesn’t have to be you this year. Here are a few easy steps that will keep you on track and help you make your resolutions into healthy habits that will follow you for the rest of your life.

1. Be Realistic

The best way to set yourself up for failure is to be too aggressive with what you want to accomplish. You can’t go from never reading to reading a book per week and expect to be able to keep up that pace for any meaningful amount of time. It’s the same with working out or eating healthy. Resolving to cut out your favorite food all together is setting you up to fail or expecting to suddenly work out six days a week just isn’t realistic. Small changes add up to big progress over time.

2. Know Your Why

Don’t feel in a rush to make a resolution. Really think about what you want to change about your life and why. You might find you’re making changes because of outside expectations. Don’t just fall into a resolution, plan it out so you know your “why”. This will help you keep going when life gets busy or when the change is hard.

3. Make a Plan

Come up with a clear path to achieving your goals. If you want to be more organized around your home for example, make a cleaning and organizing chart that has specific tasks for each day of the week. Not having a plan drastically increases your chances of failure.

4. Include Others

Tell people you know will support you and your resolution. Get them involved so they can help you and so they don’t become a source of temptation by putting you in situations where you have a hard time staying on track. And who knows, you might find a buddy who shares your New Year’s resolution so you can motivate each other.

5. Keep Track

One of the biggest ways people get derailed is by not tracking their progress, especially when it comes to weight loss or exercise. It will take time to reach your goals and your mind WILL play tricks on you. Charting inches helps when the scale doesn’t move. Taking progress photos on a regular schedule will show you how far you’ve come when you just can’t see it in the mirror. Recording personal records in the gym as you increase your weights, speed, and distance will help you see how far you’ve come when you’re discouraged.

6. Don’t Obsess

Don’t let your resolution become a source of anxiety or stress in your life. Obsessing over the occasional slip won’t help you achieve your goal. It took you years to create the issue you’re trying to fix and a slip up now and then isn’t going to derail your progress. Obsessing over your goals only makes it more likely that you will quit before you see significant progress.