This post is about how to keep your new year’s resolutions.
I think we’ve all experienced the frustration of unaccomplished new year’s resolutions. I know I have.
We set big goals and enter the new year ready for change.
And it works!
For maybe a month… and then we’re back to where we were.
So what went wrong? How does anyone ACTUALLY keep their new year’s resolutions and see them through to the end?
I’ve put together a list of the best strategies and tips for achieving any goal or new year’s resolution that you can put into practice right now.
This post is about how to keep your new year’s resolutions.
How To Actually Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions
1. Limit the number of resolutions you make
It’s easy to get excited and come up with a massive list of all the ways you can make your life better.
And that’s good to do generally speaking, but if you want to be realistic about your goals and really see a big change, it’s better to pick a few specific resolutions that are most important to you, and really focus on those for now.
Too many resolutions can become overwhelming and cause you to give up quicker or even forget what you were trying to do in the first place.
Keep things simple. Pick one or two goals and hone in on those alone.
You can check out this post on 51 Achievable New Year’s Resolution Ideas if you’re struggling to pick a new year’s resolution.
2. Keep it simple and reasonable
Going off of the first point, don’t overcomplicate your goals either. Make sure the resolutions you pick are within reason and are actually achievable.
For example, don’t set the goal “become a millionaire”. That is most likely an unrealistic goal for you.
Instead, it sounds like you really just want to make more money and find financial stability. So set goals like “improve my budget strategies”, “create a second income stream” or “build my savings account by X amount of dollars”.
3. Create a game plan
The systems you make to accomplish your goals are more important than the goals themselves.
Go into the new year with a plan on HOW you plan to achieve your resolutions and focus more on the HOW and not the WHAT.
It does no good to stare at the score board, focus on your plays.
I recommend the book Atomic Habits that talks about this concept and goes deep into the best ways to form good habits to achieve your goals. I can’t recommend it enough!!
4. Get it on paper
Map out your goals and your game plan on paper so you have a visual way to view and measure your progress.
Sometimes just writing something down helps to bring clarity and makes it feel more real.
5. Implement a reward system
Set smaller goals within your overall goal, and reward yourself when you hit each milestone.
It’s a great motivator. It can even be as simple as rewarding yourself with a Hershey kiss every night before bed if you succeeded in making healthy food choices that day.
Your overall goal is to lose X amount of pounds, but the day to day looks like simply eating healthy and each day you do that is a win in the overall game.
6. Plan ahead
Don’t stress yourself out by trying to come up with a new year’s resolution the day before the new year.
Start looking inward and processing what you feel needs to change in your life months ahead if you can.
You also don’t need to wait until the first of the year to start working toward your goals once you know what they are. No better time to start than right now.
7. Don’t give up
When you mess up, which most likely you will at some point, don’t let that stop you from trying.
If you succeed 5 times and fail once, that is still a success! And even if you fail more times than you succeed, don’t let that stop you either.
If you get to the point that you are losing more than you’re winning, stop and evaluate what is wrong with your system. Make adjustments accordingly and keep going.
Sometimes we just need to shift our perspective, our narrative about ourselves, or we need to change the environment we create so that it is serving us better in reaching our goals.
For example, if you want to lose weight this year, it’s probably not helping you to have loads of junk food in your pantry, or a bunch of sweets lying around.
Stop buying junk food when you go to the grocery store or give all the sweets and bad food away and you may find that having that temptation completely out of sight makes all the difference.
Now to get those foods, you’d have to get in your car, leave your home and go all the way to the store just to buy it, which may be just inconvenient enough to prevent you from eating them.
8. Find accountability
Tell someone you trust about your goal. Or tell a bunch of people!
Once you say it out loud to someone, it can become real, and there’s a lot more pressure to follow through on what you said you’d do.
It’s also great if you can find someone with the same goal as you. You can help motivate each other and report your progress to each other.
It’s that extra level of accountability that could really help to push you further in your journey to keeping your new year’s resolutions.
9. Write about it
Keep track of your journey and progress by journaling. It can be helpful to make notes about what’s working and what’s not. You might enjoy looking back on it one day too.
This post was all about how to keep your new year’s resolutions.
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51 Achievable New Year’s Resolution Ideas For A Great 2024