When you first make your New Year’s resolution, it’s easy to feel motivated and driven to keep up with it. However, keeping up a great new healthy habit for two weeks and keeping it up for a year means two very different things. After all, the motivation from the fresh start at the top of January can feel fantastic. It feels like you can do anything. You’re working with a blank slate. That said, as you slip away from the holidays and back into your daily routine, it can be easy to leave that drive behind you.
This year, don’t just make a great resolution for yourself, stick to it! Find out how you can stick to it beyond the first month and make sure you get the results you were hoping for. Remember that as much as that early enthusiasm is wonderful, it tends to change shape over time. Your strategy needs to take that account and keep your progress sustainable over time.
This may sound like bad news at the outset – particularly when combined with the statistic that only around 10 percent of New Year’s resolutions are achieved. However, now that you’re informed and are about to learn some fantastic tips, it’s actually great news. You’ve learned how to sidestep the barriers right from the start. You’re ready to become one of the 1 in 10 people who get to where they promise themselves they’ll be.
Use the following tips to help you to turn your resolution into a success to bring you pride. Feel great about how you stick to your New Year’s resolution this year. Who knows, maybe it’ll motivate you to do another one next year too!
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t set your goals high, but make sure they’re not so high that they are – or feel as though they are – unattainable. Have a clearheaded look at what you want to do and how you want to reach that goal.
You need to make sure you’re doing things for the right reason. If all you want is bragging rights or to throw something in someone’s face, it’s not going to be enough to get you to a long-term goal. Think harder and dig deeper to understand the positive and sustainable driving force behind what will keep you going from day to day and week to week.
You may want to lose 30 pounds this year, but next December and that thirtieth pound are quite a long while away. Instead come up with a new smaller goal to aim for each month. Your longer term goal can remain the same, but give yourself something to shoot for that is closer to where you currently are. That will help keep you motivated because you’ll always have a fresh goal to create, pursue, achieve and celebrate.
It is easy to want to overdo it when you’re getting a fresh start at the beginning of the year, but trying to achieve too much at once might mean that you won’t stick to any of it at all. Telling yourself that you want a healthier lifestyle with a whole new way of eating, regular exercise, and that you’ll visit your grandparents more, phone your mother more often, declutter your home, floss every day, quit smoking and do yoga every evening is a fast way to tell yourself not to get out of bed in the morning. Take a gradual approach, focusing on the highest priority goals first.