Keep Your New Year Resolutions

“New Year, New Me!” With the new year around the corner, you can guarantee someone you know will be saying this. A gym membership will be bought, new diet plan made, new clothes hanging in the closet as inspiration, hair appointments made, resumes updated, and money going down the drain. One of the hardest things to do is keep those resolutions we make at midnight knowing the next morning we aren’t going to want to get out of bed after the long night of celebrating. This is when the trusty old excuses come around: “I’ll start tomorrow” or “I’ll start first thing Monday morning.” And when those days come, they get pushed to another day and before you know it, you’re getting ready to start the new year with the same old resolutions. So this year try a new some new techniques:

1. Set  realistic goals – Losing weight is a common goal that typically leads people to get gym memberships and start intense diets that most people fail to keep up with a week or two into it. If losing weight is a goal you want to achieve, try taking small steps at first like just changing bad eating habits. Replace these with healthier habits like eating more fruits, eating smaller meals throughout the day, or cooking at home more. If going to the gym is your goal, don’t force yourself to do the hardest workout you can. Sometimes the hardest part is just going. Even just walking on the treadmill for 30 minutes 3 to 4 times a week is a huge improvement over not going at all. After you form better habits, can start adjusting to what you want your end goal to be.
2. Share your goals – Talk to someone who can help hold you accountable for keeping your goal. More people tend to keep their resolutions when they know someone is keeping them accountable. This doesn’t always have to be a friend or family member. Try joining a group of other people trying to do the same thing. They can help cheer you on as you achieve your goal and support you at the same time when things get hard.
3. Have a deadline – Give yourself a timeline of when you want to achieve certain goals and make them attainable. If losing weight is your goal, giving yourself a couple months to lose weight is realistic versus losing a bunch of weight in January. By setting attainable goals you can accomplish, you are more likely to keep up with them versus setting unreachable goals and getting disappointed when they don’t happen.
4. Be prepared by setbacks – Can’t make it to the gym for a week? Ate some dessert one night? Don’t be discouraged by this. Sometimes life gets busy and hectic where you just don’t have the time to get to your resolution, but this doesn’t mean that you give up. You can always pick up where you left off. Everyone is entitled to a small setback and these can actually help you attain your goal. By having the setbacks, they can give you more motivation to do better in the future.

New year resolutions can be tough but with a positive mindset, a support system, and a willingness to work towards the goal, they can be achieved. Any habit can take a minimum of 21 days to form and another 90 to make it permanent. Give yourself time to achieve your goals and you are bound to be a success!