No glue required to make your New Year’s resolutions stick! Just a few helpful tips and consistent chipping away at your goals.
Though most people set out at the beginning of the year with great intentions to stick to their new year’s resolutions, unfortunately, a few weeks or months into it, the resolutions are forgotten or dropped. This can be for a number of reasons, but ultimately it boils down to making lasting changes and improvements can be difficult!
Here are some tips and strategies to help you successfully master and stick to your new year’s resolutions this year.
Decide On a Single Resolution
While it’s great to be highly motivated to make many positive changes, taking on too many goals or resolutions at once significantly decreases your likelihood of consistency and lasting success. Rather, choose your most desired resolution, and focus all of your attention and energy into that one resolution. Focusing on mastering that one thing helps prevent you from becoming overwhelmed.
Focus on the Positive
Rather than focusing on what you’re not going to do, focus instead on what you are going to do! For example, if you want to lose weight, don’t focus on not eating junk food, but instead focus on including a certain number of servings of vegetables a day. This keeps your mindset in the positive light and helps boost and maintain willpower.
Be Specific
Make sure your resolution itself is specific, but also ensure your plan, or the steps to reaching that resolution, are also specific. For example, rather than simply saying “I’m going to eat more veggies” get clear and specific about what that means to you, such as “I’m going to eat twelve servings of vegetables each day.” Something detailed and actionable gives you a way of tracking what you’re really doing.
Tell People Your Resolutions
Sharing your resolutions not only gives a positive support group but lets people know what your resolution is. Additionally, it’s a good idea to have at least one person as an accountability buddy. This helps you stay consistent and motivated. Your accountability buddy can be a coach, a family member, or a walking or a gym buddy.
Set gradual goals or milestones: Having a large resolution can seem daunting and like you might never get there. A better approach is to set smaller, specific, milestone goals or resolutions. Smaller goals allow you to feel like you’re making progress, that you’re successful, and that you can keep at it. It can also be helpful to give yourself milestone achievement rewards to help enhance your sense of accomplishment and maintain a high level of motivation.
Visualize Mastering Your Resolution
Use the power of your mind to see and feel what it will be like when you reach and accomplish your resolution! This significantly helps you to stay on track, motivated and successful. Focus on what you’re gaining by working on achieving your resolution, not on what you might be giving up.
Remind Yourself of Your Resolutions
To help you stick to your resolutions, it’s a good idea to keep constant reminders around you, which also helps with motivation. Whether this means reminders in your calendar, written notes around the house, pictures of your end goal, or other visual reminders and motivators, keep your mind constantly reminded of the direction you’re headed. The act of writing down your goals and resolutions also can go a long way in helping you stay committed to and successful in accomplishing your resolutions.
Just Start!
Remember things don’t need to be perfect for you to get going. Any progress, even if it’s slow or small progress, is still progress! Even if you set very small baby-step goals to mastering your resolution, that’s still something! Every action, even if it’s tiny, is better than nothing, and tiny actions lead to great actions!
The first step is getting clear on what your one resolution will be, and specific actions you’re going to take to then accomplish or reach that one resolution!
“Intent reveals desire; action reveals commitment.” –Dr. Steve Maraboli
A great way to get you going on resolutions is joining our fitness challenge!
