10 Simple Steps To Make New Year Resolutions Work

Another new year is dawning upon us. Have you any new year resolutions that you would like to see through in 2021? If you have tried and did not quite succeed in meeting your new year resolutions in the past, here are some simple steps you can adopt to strengthen your strides. They are nothing new but serves as a good reminder as we take on the challenges to make good of our resolutions. Each step may sound simple, but the trick is to actually go through with them. They are simple enough for our children to follow too if they have come up with their resolutions for the new year and want to make them stick. 1. Be clear about your “Why” To start with, you must know the exact resolutions you are setting yourself up for. The most important thing to understand about your resolutions is WHY you are making them. Half the success of doing something is in knowing our reason for doing it. Is it what you really want? If it’s not, cross it out. It won’t work if you’re half-hearted about it. You’d only be setting yourself up to fail if it’s something that’s not important enough to you. 2. Define them accurately and be specific, not a general goal that’s hard to measure What you put down as your resolution must have an end that’s measurable. If it’s about saving more money, then put down a specific number as to how much it is. If it’s about working out more to be fit, name the specific time spent on exercising. If it’s to have more home-cooked meals instead of eating out, then put down how many meals a week to be cooked. 3. Make them significant, and just a handful (less is better!) Making changes in life can take its toll on us even though they are small ones. So be easy on yourself and don’t make a whole long list of things for the year. It’s OK to take our time with just a handful of changes at a time, and not overwhelm ourselves with too much. In this case, the fewer the resolutions, the better. We don’t need more stress by having a long list of goals that may not mean much to us. Pick the most significant of them and focus your energy on those. 4. Break them down into very small steps (and make them fun too!) With each resolution, break them down into small stepping stones to take one day at a time. This helps you to “eat the elephant” manageably. Also, when you have defined these small steps, it makes the change more bearable and possible, and gives you more hope that you can do it and will make it. Inject some fun into your steps. It makes it all more bearable and enjoyable. 5. Create a timeline To accomplish each resolution, you may need several different steps along the whole year to make it come to fruition. Draw yourself a timeline for these steps, one phase at a time. Start with this as a plan before you begin embarking on the goal itself. Having your step-by-step guide on hand helps to ease you into it instead of not knowing where to start and what to do next. Failing to plan is planning to fail. Cliche but it’s true! 6. Use a habit tracker tool Use a tool like a habit tracker to help you monitor your daily to-do or progress towards your goals. Put down those small steps you’ve created as a habit to track. Depending on your goals and how you plan to achieve them, it may be more appropriate to do daily, weekly, or monthly trackers. Image credit: The Incremental Mama You can create one in a journal or use a habit tracker app. Some of us (myself included) feel a great satisfaction when looking at our days/weeks/months of unbroken streaks of doing something consistently. It helps to keep us going and motivate us on days that we don’t feel like doing what we need to do. 7. Don’t be too hard on yourself We also need to allow ourselves some slack sometimes. Never beat ourselves up for failing to make it on some days. It happens to the best of us but knows in your heart that we’re only human and don’t need to be perfect. A little setback is fine, just pick ourselves up gently and move on. Self-care and encouragement are important instead of beating ourselves up. Self-love works better than hard-love. Give ourselves some downtime if we need it and there’s no need to feel guilty. 8. Create rewards for little milestones along the way Reward yourself for achieving little milestones. Small encouragements along the way help us to feel motivated. In our, we should also celebrate small wins, not just the big ones. So create some rewards for yourself like treating yourself to something you enjoy once you’ve reached a certain defined milestone. And do this often, keep rewarding yourself. If you don’t, who else will? Be kind and generous with yourself while you are tackling changes and goals. 9. Review and adjust where necessary Our path is never straight-forward and a straight line from point A to point B. We go through ups and downs, get thrown with curve-balls and maybe even get stalled for all kinds of reasons. Since life is unpredictable moment to moment, we need to be fluid and review and adjust our steps and schedules whenever necessary. It’s OK to change our speed and even change our plans to get to our resolutions. Just don’t change the direction you’re heading to. After all, we learn and get better day by day, so we may want to change some of the planned approaches to some better ways we have discovered. 10. Enjoy the journey towards your goals Image credit: Pexels This is possibly the most important…to enjoy our every step toward the change that we want for ourselves. If we’re not enjoying the journey, then what’s the point of making ourselves miserable, eh? After all, making resolutions is something we do voluntarily, moving ourselves to a place we regard as a better place to be in. Speak positively of your journey (even though it may not be smooth and easy) instead of complaining about it. It makes a big difference to how we feel, and subsequently our chances of success, too.

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