Happy New Year! It’s always exciting to turn over a new page and set some goals for the year ahead.
I’m a huge advocate of making resolutions at any time throughout the year when you notice you need to make a change. There’s a lot of pressure associated with new year’s resolutions, since we’re all aware of how often they fail. But there are some reasons why they fail, and it’s only partly about willpower.
You also need to frame them in the right way if you want to make your new year’s resolution stick Here’s how to do it:
Make goals and resolutions both.
A goal is a specific milestone, perhaps with a specific date attached to it. A resolution is more of a habit you want to make or break. You don’t set a resolution to run a marathon—you set a goal. However, your resolution may be to run five days a week, which will help you prepare for that marathon. Make some goals, then set resolutions that support your pursuit of those goals.
Make sure it’s something you really want.
The desire to change has to come from inside. You can’t be doing it because your mom or your spouse wants you to. Generally, that’s not enough. The big changes occur when you want them to occur. As soon as you want it, there’s no stopping you.
Don’t set a goal or a resolution that doesn’t excite you.
Write it down.
Be very specific about what you’re doing. “Lose weight” isn’t enough. “Drop two dress sizes” is better. “Change my body composition to decrease my body fat and increase my muscle mass” is better yet.
“Drop two dress sizes by going to the gym four times per week, walking two miles every evening, eating a large salad for lunch every day, and drinking six glasses of water per day” is best. It includes your goal and the resolutions that will help you get there. Whatever your goal is, write it down along with your plan of action.
Enlist help.
I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing more embarrassing for me than telling someone I’m going to do something….and then not doing it. For this reason, I don’t usually open my mouth unless I’m serious—and if I’m serious, there’s no way I’m going to drop the ball.
Tell your friends and family about what you’re trying to do, and ask them to support you.
Delete the negativity.
More than likely, there will be people—maybe even people close to you—who try (intentionally or unintentionally) to undermine your success. It may be because on some level they feel like you’re leaving them behind. They feel weird about not losing 10 pounds if you can lose 10 pounds. Keep loving them—they’re not always aware of what they’re doing when they encourage you to eat another piece of cake or ask you to skip your workout to join them at the movies—but get rid of ’em however you can. Identify these naysayers, and vow to ignore them and their negativity.
Don’t get caught up in the destination—or the deadline.
The point is to live a good life. A happy life. Your goals should be life-enhancing, and it’s nice if the process of achieving them can be joyful, too.
Giving yourself a deadline by when you have to achieve the goal can be helpful if it holds you accountable to your action plan, but depending on the goal, it can be hard if you fall short. Body fat loss goals (always one of the most common new year’s resolutions), for example, don’t always happen on the timeline we want or expect. Set the deadline if you want, but be prepared to KEEP GOING if it so happens that you don’t meet the deadline. Wouldn’t you rather lose 10 pounds of body fat in a year instead of not at all, even if your original plan was to lose it in four months?
Have you ever set a resolution and stuck to it? How did it color your life, or is it still a part of your life today? What led to your success?