7 Steps For Reaching New Year’s Resolutions
Accomplishing New Year’s Resolutions
Every year, people start looking towards the year ahead to try to better themselves. Most people are able to start out strong and use their motivation to change their habits, but by February 80% of resolutions have failed and people return to their last year behavior.
This year, a few simple New Year’s Resolution Tips can go a long way with helping your resolutions stick.
1. Narrow Down the List
Most people have more than one New Year’s resolutions in mind during the holidays, but choosing the top one or two can limit how overwhelmed you may feel come January 1st. This can also be helpful in narrowing down a broad resolution to a more specific one. Instead of “staying fit and healthy,” maybe focus mostly on eating cleaner or drinking more water.
Of course, this doesn’t mean ignoring the other things you’d like to improve about yourself, but choose what the priority is for you and direct most of your focus and motivation towards that.
2. Prepare to Achieve New Year’s Resolutions
Prepare yourself for success. Once you’ve narrowed down your top one or two New Year’s resolutions preparation can be key. Simply take an hour between Christmas and New Year’s to plan a path to success. Look at where you are, where you would like to be, and how you can get there. For example, if working out more often is your goal – look first at why you haven’t currently been exercising as much as you would like and figure out small things that can increase the amounts of workouts you do in a week.
If lack of time was an issue in the past, build time into your week specifically for exercising; if boring workouts bummed you out, take some time to research new and exciting workouts that might be a better fit.
3. Motivation can be Hard
Especially in the chilly, grey months of winter, it can be hard to find the motivation to get out of bed a little earlier, hit the gym after work, or make the time to study an additional hour. This coming year, beat the winter blues by using a song that pumps you up as your alarm tone (whether it’s first thing in the morning or to remind you to get something done throughout the day).
Another great motivator can be memes and photos but since people are typically hesitant to change their home screens – create a photo album of your favorite and pull them right up when you start to make excuses.
4. Eye on the Prize
Instead of setting a major goal for yourself, set smaller incremental goals to build up to your big goal. If your goal is to read more, maybe start out with the goal of reading for 20 minutes each night before bed; the next week you can keep the same goal or adjust it, but sticking to a habit for one week seems a lot less daunting than changing your behavior for life.
5. Rewards, Rewards, Rewards
Yes, it would be great if inner motivation and desire to change was enough to get everyone to stick to their goals. However, if that doesn’t do it for you, build in some rewards that are unrelated to your resolutions. If you’re trying to learn a language, reward yourself with a manicure or pedicure every time you make it through a section; if you’re goal is to get organized, give yourself a night off for every room you successfully get in order.
6. Track your Progress
Many people find nothing more motivating then seeing progress for themselves. If your New Year’s resolution was to lose weight, weigh yourself in the beginning and track your progress. We know, that first time stepping on the scale after the holidays is no fun for anyone, but if you see yourself actively losing weight and achieving your goal overtime, it’s much more likely you’ll stick to it in the long run.
7. Cheat Better:Track your Progress
The day will eventually arise when you feel your motivation waning or have your first “less than healthy” craving. Of course, that will pass, but if you have things on hand that can help you get through those days, you’ll be much more likely to stay on track. If eating better is your resolution, stock up on some YumEarth organic lollipops or organic hard candy to get you through any sugar cravings without derailing your entire game plan.
Each of these seems little, but taking the time to fully prepare will go a LONG way in helping you become a part of the 20% of people who stick to their resolutions beyond February.
In 2007, YumEarth was just two dads on a mission to bring something sweet and simple into the world. In ten years our little mission has grown bigger than ever. The larger our business grows, the harder we strive to use the most honest ingredients, provide the best value for fans, and develop new and delicious products based as much on our own principles as they are on our customers’ feedback. And since we’re on the subject, we’d love to hear from you with suggestions on how we can improve and extend our happy family of tasty treats.
Category: Blog
