New Year’s Resolutions: 5 Strategies to Achieve Your New Year’s Resolutions – If You Insist on Setting Them
What are your New Year’s resolutions? Why do you want to change what you want to change? How are you going to achieve your New Year’s resolutions?
If there is one trend that holds fast year after year, it’s the January 1st hobby of setting New Year’s resolutions. For some reason, we’re all motivated to create change in ourselves and choose January 1st to kickstart our change momentum.
However, we know that very few people actually achieve these resolutions. And for many people this failure to achieve their goals sends them into a downward spiral of feeling badly about themselves.
This is exactly why we’re not big fans of setting New Year’s resolutions. Change can happen whenever you want and often change happens exactly when you need it to happen. A life event, person, experience, book, film, piece of music, or news article might spark something in you that gets you motivated to do something. This is what gets us excited at AHCC Research.
However, if you do insist on setting New Year’s resolutions, we’ve given you 5 strategies that can help you achieve them.
WHY NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS FAIL
New Year’s resolutions fail because we set ourselves up for failure. We set lofty and ambitious New Year’s resolutions that require more than one habit change to achieve them.
For example, setting a resolution to lose 10 pounds by April. Yes, this is achievable, but you have to accomplish so many other goals to reach your ultimate resolution. To lose 10 pounds by April, you need to do the following:
- Change your diet. And stick to it.
- Start exercising. Regularly.
- Avoid office snacks.
- Make sure you can stick to your new routine when traveling.
- Follow your new diet when out with friends and family.
This small example illustrates why 80% of us give up on our New Year’s resolutions by the end of January. Your New Year’s resolutions are too huge and ambitious.
And this is exactly why New Year’s resolutions fail. We expect too much of ourselves and believe we can do it all. Now, we want you to set big goals and be ambitious, but not if these goals are asking too much of you.
5 STRATEGIES TO ACHIEVE YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS
To achieve your New Year’s resolutions, focus on these five key strategies:
- Start Small
Break your big resolution into small chunks. Then choose the small chunk that gets you excited. Think about what small habits, skills, and changes you need to make part of your life to achieve your larger resolution. This makes it much easier to see how you can achieve your New Year’s resolution. And remember, keep these small goals simple. Don’t overcomplicate your small goal. If you can’t write it down in 10 words or less, the goal is too big.
- Think Hobby
Let’s admit it, so many of our New Year’s resolutions are really about suffering. Lose weight. Eat better. Exercise more. Cut back on spending. Stop shopping. Go sugar-free, dairy-free, gluten-free, or chocolate-free. None of these really sound like much fun and this is exactly why you end up giving up very quickly. There is no joy, excitement, or passion in most New Year’s resolutions.
Instead, think about something you’ve always wanted to do. A hobby or skill such as sketching, pottery, music, joining a film club, learning to ice skate, taking a cake decorating course, etc. It’s so much easier to set a goal when there is fun tied to it, you’ll enjoy the process and soon enough it won’t feel like a New Year’s resolution – it’s just something you do.
- Be Patient
Be patient with yourself. Give yourself space to not be perfect every day. Remember that there is a reason this is a resolution – because it requires change. Change is hard, so let yourself take two steps back. If you need to, let yourself take a break from your 2020 New Year’s resolution. There is no point in being hard on yourself.
- Answer Why
When setting your New Year’s resolutions, ask yourself why you want to achieve this resolution. What does this resolution mean to you, your family, your community, etc? What value does this New Year’s resolution add to your life? If you can’t answer why you want to achieve this goal – then it’s not the right goal for you.
- Measurable Targets
It’s really hard to know if you’re losing weight if you don’t stand on the scale regularly or take measurements of your hips, thighs, waist, and arms. You can’t just guess and assume that you’re on track. The same holds true for your New Year’s resolutions. The only way to know if you will achieve them is to set measurable targets.After writing down your New Year’s resolution, determine how you’ll achieve this goal, and what you’ll measure and monitor so you can get regular feedback on your progress. This helps you stay accountable and highlights if the goal is too large and needs to be broken into small measurable and achievable goals.
GETTING READY FOR THE NEW YEAR
We want you to live your best life possible. And when it comes to the new decade, we want you to take the time to think about what is important to you and why. This should help inform your New Year’s resolutions.
Visit the AHCC Association community page on Facebook and share with others what you want to achieve in the new year.
Together each of us can achieve our goals.
We wish you the very best for the upcoming year. The entire AHCC Association team wishes you the very best in health and happiness. Happy New Year!
