New Year Resolutions You Can Actually Stick To

The new year is just around the corner and you’re feeling extra motivated to make your health a top priority. You might’ve indulged a little too much over the holidays and are packing in an extra few kilos, or you may have achieved a healthy balance and are ready to amp up the intensity.

Whatever your situation, these tips will help you build a new year resolution that is realistic and achievable enough to stick to all year round.

Motivation

First, it’s important to understand that motivation doesn’t last. This can be due to several reasons. It could be because thoughts of doubt start to creep in, the emotion behind the motivation fades or we simply forget about our goal as daily life resumes.

Achieving a goal is much more likely when we build a supporting habit, rather than solely relying on motivation.

Reframing Your Goals

Rather than focusing on what you want to achieve, think about the person you wish to become.

How does the person who has XYZ (your goal) think, dress, speak or act?

What is their lifestyle like?

What do you need to change to become more like your ideal?

Habit Forming

I was told that building a habit takes 28 days of daily engagement. Whether or not the number of days is true, engaging in a daily practice and forming a routine creates a compound effect. In other words, small changes build up over time to create significant results and get you closer to achieving your goal.

For example, eating one nutritious meal is great but it isn’t going to result in any significant health changes. However, nutritious meals consumed daily will result in remarkable positive health effects over time.

Remove Obstacles

To stick to a habit, we need to make achieving them as easy as possible. Your environment is one of the biggest influences of human behaviour. It can either propel you closer to your goal or drift you further away.

How can you rearrange your environment to make achieving your goal as easy as possible?

For example, if your goal is to eat well, stock your pantry and fridge with healthy foods and avoid having junk foods at home.

Act

Reflect on the questions listed above and think about what changes you can make to reshape your thoughts, behaviours and environment to create a realistic new years resolution that you can stick to for years on end.

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