Hello everyone!

Today we are talking about how to make and keep your new year’s resolution this coming year! The year can serve as a fresh start for new habits, new goals, and a new life. Although it may be tempting to slack off from December to January 1st, this is not the mindset you want to approach the new year! The key to being successful in achieving your goals means you have to start right now! Yes- now! If you’re already 3 weeks into working towards your goal, you’ll be more inclined to continue through the new year and further. According to a survey conducted by Finder, an estimated 23.1 million Americans don’t believe that their resolution was ever within reach. Furthermore, the common reason cited for failing their resolution was the fact they did not have the “willpower.”

From these disappointing statistics, we can see that is necessary to shift your mindset, how you make your goals, and to ensure the realistic nature of what you want to achieve. Going into the new year with no solid plan and a bad mindset is the quickest way to failure. But there’s no need to feel overwhelmed because we will be taking you through several simple steps to make, keep, and achieve your new year’s resolution!

So let’s get into it!

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1. Assess your life

Going into a new year allows us to reflect on the past 12 months and what we have accomplished.

Take a moment to self-reflect on your accomplishments, your failures, your regrets, and your goals. Make a list and try to fill each category with as many bullet points as you can. When you look at these moments, how do you feel? Are you happy or disappointed with where you are in your life?

Pat yourself on the back for what you have achieved, no matter how small, and don’t beat yourself up about your failures. Take accountability but don’t let it define you! Now, write down the three main emotions you feel and identify the behaviours that you will change or maintain in the new year.

2. Identify your goals

Now it’s time to get specific with what you want! With the behaviours and activities, you have outlined in the first step, set goals to change or maintain them. Try not to go overboard but be specific enough to be able to measure your progress!

As I’ve described in a previous post, “Make sure your goals are SMART. This is an acronym for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely (time-based). Specific goals are narrowed down to a singular action or plan. Measurable goals can provide evidence of their success. Attainable goals are realistic to your situation and your abilities. Relevant goals are aligned with the area in your life you desire to change and contribute to life-long or long-term goals. Timely goals have an attainable and realistic end date. When writing specific goals, try to ensure you encompass all the aspects of SMART goals to increase your chances of success!”.

3. Shift your mindset

Shifting your mindset is necessary for making and keeping your resolutions. You need to: increase your self-esteem and confidence, have positive self-talk, be disciplined, and have patience!

Confidence

Self-esteem and confidence go hand-in-hand. Understanding you’re worthy of love and respect can be a difficult task for someone with perpetually low self-esteem. The first step to this is believing that everyone is equal. There is no one you are above or below. There is no hierarchy of humans, we are all the same and experience life in similar fashions.

Everyone has irrational anxieties, bad days, and failures. Don’t look down on yourself because you think are less worthy because of these reasons. “The grass isn’t greener on the other side, it’s greener where you water it”. This means you need to stop comparing, doubting, and putting yourself down and begin to take the small steps to be more confident.

Positive self-talk

You need to decide that radical self-love is the only way. It is a waste of time and life to live it hating yourself! What’s the point?

Surround yourself with uplifting music, pictures, movies, books, and podcasts. Surround yourself with things that bring you joy and throw out things that do not. Unfollow people you compare yourself to. Engage in hobbies that you truly like- whether it’s deemed “embarrassing” or “uncool”. Why would you live your own life to someone else’s preferences? Every time you look in the mirror, smile and compliment yourself. Hype yourself up! Combat negative thoughts with positive ones (even if you don’t truly believe them). Fight your self-deprecation, cynicism, and pessimism and persist with your bullet-proof optimism.

Discipline

Habits and discipline will make or break you! Being a disciplined person is a life-long journey that can lead to success in any domain. Whether it be timers, daily scheduling, motivational videos, or vision boards, you need to commit to your goals for at least 1 month and it will soon turn into a habit.

You need to show up for yourself, instead of abandoning things when it gets hard. You’ve set goals for a reason, so why fail to execute them? Scared of failure? Embarrassed? Tired? All these reasons are valid but how does it feel when it’s the end of the year and you haven’t accomplished your resolution for the 5th time in a row?

Patience

Being more mindful is a great way to increase your patience. Especially in the landscape of TikTok and other social media platforms, our patience and attention span are dwindling. Learning to be in the present instead of living in the past or future is a great way to ground yourself. Increase your mindfulness with tasks such as reducing multitasking, taking full stops when driving, eating with no distractions, and reading. Learning delayed gratification will change your life radically for the better and help you achieve your long-term resolution.

4. Timeline

Creating a realistic timeline is essential in keeping your resolutions. You can’t expect to lose 50 pounds in a month, so set your expectations accordingly. We make goals in a quarterly fashion meaning every 3 months we make and reassess our goals. This helps put your goals in a more digestible fashion making them seem more achievable. Situations and priorities change over a year, so making your timeline a bit shorter can help keep you on track!

For example, if you want to lose 80 pounds by the end of the year, set a goal to lose 20 pounds in 3 months and then reassess when the 3 months are up!

5. Daily Scheduling

Build a fleshed-out daily routine to stay on track! You can be general about it or super-specific- do what works for you!

6. Track your progress

Keeping either a mental or physical track of your progress is an amazing way to keep you motivated to reach your resolutions. It also is a great memory to keep on your journey. Take progress pictures or a notes document to record your development!

7. Milestones and rewards

Identify major and minor milestones within your goals and reward yourself! It is important to not remove the fun part of achieving your goals and resolutions.

8. Enjoy the journey

Learning to enjoy the journey is not an easy task. How many of us would like to snap our fingers and be in our ideal situation? Unfortunately, we have to grind and work every day to get to where we want but there is also an upside to this. While reshaping your life, you’ll learn things about yourself that you never knew! You’ll have a different outlook on things, be more confident, more knowledgeable, and more comfortable in who you are. Enjoy the journey because life is all about learning and being in the present. Good things take time and you are striving to accomplish amazing things!

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Are you making any new year’s resolutions? What do you want to achieve this year? Let us know in the comments below!

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