How to Keep a New Years Resolution
The lull of time between Christmas day and New Year’s eve is often the time to choose, contemplate and then conclude on our resolutions for the upcoming year. The first few days bleeding into the new year, we often feel assured and concrete in our goals, but as we pull further and further away from the 1st, roughly 80% of us will fail to keep up with our resolutions. This year is going to be different.
The first step to ensuring that we can keep up with our resolutions this year and the many to follow is choosing a realistic and reasonable goal(s). For example, setting a resolution to get yourself a boyfriend or girlfriend isn’t the most pragmatic — believe me, I’ve heard this resolution before. Rather, set a resolution to put yourself out there, be more willing to meet new people, and step out of your comfort zone. We can’t control other people’s thoughts or emotions, so setting a goal to get a relationship isn’t the most achievable. But focusing on yourself and your willingness to get there, makes the resolution more attainable and realistic. From there you may just meet the someone you are looking for. Once we have picked your realistic goal, the next crucial step is planning. When we establish our resolutions during that lull time or even on New Year’s Eve by the cheekiest of us, they tend to be fated to failure. Setting goals quickly without a plan leaves them unstable and fast to fall. Allowing time to plan can ensure a well-thought-out system of achieving set ambition. Planning grants us the ability to break down our goals into subsections making it easier for us to stick with them. Instead of planning to work out 7 days a week in the new year, start smaller, “I plan to work out 4 days a week for the next month” and then you can increase the days as you see fit. That way there isn’t the initial heavy load placed on our shoulders to achieve the goal and succeed at it right from the start. Good things take time to accomplish and often need tender care.
Another important thing is learning to accept and adapt during our year-long progress to obtain our objectives. Setbacks are very common and shouldn’t be something that completely derails our journeys. They should be viewed as a learning opportunity and something to build off of. One of the main causes of a failed New Year's resolution is that people encounter setbacks and view them as failures. Instead of quitting, we should learn and adapt from the experience of falling behind on our goals. That way moving forward we can understand what sets us back and how to avoid or work with it in the future to ensure it doesn’t regress our progress again. We are only human and are bound to hit disheartening bumps in the road disguised as peer pressure or an absence of willpower to name a few examples.
Understanding why we want to achieve our New Year’s resolutions is also pivotal in ensuring we stick with them. Often it would seem people set goals with what others think or with societal standards in mind, disembodied from what your wants and needs require. It’s important to understand what you're trying to accomplish for yourself before you think of others. Don’t let society choose your goals for you, they will rarely if ever succeed.
Last but not least, talk about your New Year’s resolutions. Let family and friends know what your goals for the new year are — if you are comfortable sharing — as it breeds a sense of responsibility placed upon yourself. Having others know our goal makes us more accountable, while also providing a route for possible support. Depending on your friends and family, there may be support such as tips or advice, or maybe even just motivational affirmations. Either way, having a support system makes it way more likely for us to achieve something than without it.
Simply, to ensure we keep our New Year’s resolutions as we cascade into 2022, we may want to follow the steps provided. Make sure you choose a goal that is obtainable, plan and break it down if necessary. Your goals might even change and grow as you progress during the year as you grow with them. Don’t look at your setbacks as failures but as a stepping stone that provides knowledge and growth. Talking about our resolutions is also going to get you much farther than keeping goals to yourself. Good luck with your New Year’s resolution endeavours and keep these tips in mind. Stay resilient and be kind to yourself, you’ve got this. 2022 is your year!