Lose weight. Quit Smoking. Save Money. These probably sound familiar to you, as they are some of the most popular New Year’s resolutions made year after year. Unfortunately, four out of five people who make New Year’s resolutions will eventually break them, and a third won’t even make it until February!
If you feel like you fail year after year to keep your resolution, you’re not alone! It’s not easy making a lifestyle change, especially breaking life-long habits like smoking. But follow these tips, and you’ll have all the tools you need to keep this year’s resolution, and many more for years to come!
Tips for Keeping Your New Year’s Resolution
1. Think about your resolution or goal. Is it something important to you, or something important to someone else? If you make a resolution to please someone else, you are far less likely to stick to it. Motivation is the key to success here. Sure, you might feel motivated to quit smoking for a loved one because they begged you to. But if YOU don’t truly want to quit for yourself, chances are, you’re not going to last past January.
2. Think of your resolution as a lifestyle change or long term goal. It’s not just a one year deal. You don’t just throw last year’s resolution out the window when you make a new one the following New Year, do you? No! The idea of a New Year’s resolution is for self-improvement and to better your life. Whether it’s to lose weight so you can play with your kids, or try something new to enrich your life, New Year’s resolutions are long term goals for a better you. If you fall off the wagon, get back on it!
When you view your resolution as a lifestyle change, you realize it’s not over if you overindulge one day, or even one week. Instead, you make up for it the next week, and get right back on the plan. A little resistance is part of a long term change – it does not mean failure.
3. Be specific with your resolution, but also realistic. Making a resolution to never eat sweets or bread is doomed to fail. By completely cutting something out of your diet, you set yourself up for a binge. This leads to shame, regret, and giving up. Instead, make a resolution to only eat sweets once a week! The rest of the week, vow to only eat healthy sweets like fruit or other low calorie treats. Indulging once in a while and not completely depriving your body of what it’s used to will help keep you on track.
If you haven’t exercised or been active for years, don’t make a resolution to go to the gym every day or lose 20 pounds in one month. Small goals are much easier to keep, and help you reach that ultimate goal. When you reach that first goal of say, exercising 3 days a week, you’ll feel more confident and motivated to stick to it and then step it up to 4 days a week the following month. Instead of feeling failure because you didn’t work out every day, you’ll feel pretty good about yourself for sticking to your resolution, and you’ll continue to keep at it. Same thing for weight loss – make it specific, but realistic. A resolution to lose 5 pounds a month for 6 months and then maintain it is easier to keep than a resolution to lose 30 pounds this year.
4. Focus on ONE change. Don’t try and take on too many different goals all at once. Focus on the change that is most important to you. Quitting smoking and losing weight are hard enough on their own, let alone together. Trying to tackle both together sets you up for failure.
5. Plan and track it! You should have a carefully thought out plan, with clear steps along the way. It’s nice to resolve to lose 5 pounds a month, but how are you going to do it? A good plan will tell you what you need to do now, when you are going to do it, and what you are going to do next. Studies have shown that people who write down what they eat every day are more likely to lose weight and keep it off. When you write down what you eat, when you work out, or the jobs you apply to, there’s no denying or lying to yourself. You are more conscious of where you are and where you’re going with your goal, helping you recognize partial successes along the way.
6. Find a support group. It’s hard to make a lifestyle change and stick to it on your own. If your resolution is to find a job, you probably don’t want to hang out with unmotivated individuals who have no desire to find work. If you’re trying to lose weight, it’s not the best idea to hang out with friends who aren’t and eat whatever they want all the time. And it’s ESPECIALLY not okay to be around people who are trying to sabotage your goals! Surround yourself with a support system of people with the same goal or people who want to see you succeed unconditionally.
Good Luck and Happy New Year!
