Millions of individuals set New Year’s resolutions each year in an effort to bring about improvement. A more active attitude to health and fitness, better financial management, and learning new things for both personal and professional development are repeating themes each year. More than a few of the top 10 most popular resolutions may probably seem familiar to you:
- Exercise more
- Lose weight
- Get organized
- Learn a new skill or hobby
- Live life to the fullest
- Save more money / spend less money
- Quit smoking
- Spend more time with family and friends
- Travel more
- Read more
Making your New Year’s resolutions happen
Even with the best of intentions, after the excitement of a brand-new year fades, many individuals find it difficult to follow through on their goals. Only 46% of those who set New Year’s resolutions succeeded, according to a research that was published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. Thus, more than half of those who make resolutions for the next year will fall short of them.
Non-resolvers, or those who didn’t set New Year’s resolutions but still had a goal for the year, were also included in the study.
A much worse outcome than those who did make a New Year’s resolution was that just 4% of those who didn’t make any were successful in reaching their objectives.
Naturally, we don’t want to be among those who fall short of their goals and objectives for 2022, so we’ve developed a thorough plan for seeing your resolve through.
Follow these 10 steps if you want to keep your New Year’s resolve this year:
1. Mentally prepare for change
Before launching headfirst into your New Year’s resolutions, it’s crucial to take a step back and prepare for that approaching change since changing deeply entrenched behaviors is no easy process.
Making a personal inventory is the first step in transformation. It’s the ideal time to reflect on the accomplishments of the previous year because it’s the end of one and the start of the new. Consider the following:
- What did I set out to do in the past year?
- Where did I make progress?
- Where didn’t I see progress?
Naturally, your resolution may concentrate on areas where there hasn’t been improvement, but don’t forget to appreciate the advancements achieved and find a tiny way to rejoice. Those positive emotions are beneficial! If at all feasible, attempt to connect them to a symbol or phrase that represents your success.
In order to use the positive link with your successes from the previous year as a reminder of those wonderful sensations when you are feeling challenged, you will want to remain enthusiastic about your current commitment.
Make sure you do the following as you consider the modifications you wish to make:
- Stay positive
- Try not to make big/quick changes
- Change should be gradual
- Build on smaller changes
- Allow a little room for error
2. Set a goal that motivates you
You’d be shocked at how frequently individuals make objectives that are not for themselves. These objectives may be mandated or forced upon you by your boss, spouse, parents, or peers.
Although it’s wonderful to have some outside backing, the resolution has a slim chance of success and could even fail before it ever starts.
To do this, you must ensure that the objective you have set is significant to you and you alone, and that reaching it will be worthwhile or beneficial to you. These two factors will provide people the motivation and desire to act. This also goes by the name of motivation!
Consequently, it’s a sure thing if your goals coincide with the following:
- Your goals
- Your priorities
- Your dreams
- Your aspirations
You should make sure that the resolutions fit around your main priorities in addition to your innermost wishes. This will result in a “must do” mentality.
Make your own professional development plan if one of your goals is to advance your job, such as learning more about Excel. This is a wonderful approach to keep yourself motivated as you go forward.
3. Limit resolutions to a manageable amount
Spreading oneself too thin by making too many resolutions is a typical error. We all wish to pick up 25 new languages, 15 new talents for the workplace, and get rid of 5 old habits, but we are not superhuman. Having too many resolutions is a terrific method to not reach the numerous goals you have set for yourself since we only have so much focus to devote to self-improvement.
You should thus compile a manageable set of resolutions for the next year. The difficult aspect is identifying that limited list of priorities. Knowing how to prioritize is the key in this situation.
Here is a task that will assist you in determining what matters most in your life. All you need is a wall, a post-it pad, and a pen.
- Write anything you want to accomplish for self-improvement purposes on a post-it
- Each post-it only gets one discreet tactic
- Place each post-it on the wall
- Go crazy – use as many post-its as possible
- Group together similar post-its
- Place the topics you feel strongly about at the top of the wall
- Put the topics you feel “meh” about on the bottom
- Spend a lot of time thinking about the order of the first 3-5 post-it (groups)
As you may expect, step #8 takes the longest because it determines the resolutions you will make for this year.
The last piece of the puzzle in this situation is being aware of your specific bandwidth and constraints. In light of this, you should prioritize your most important tasks while weighing how much attention you can actually provide a resolve.
One resolution successfully executed is preferable than many resolves badly executed.
4. Be specific
It’s simple to make inadequate goals for resolutions, which might result in poor follow through. Fortunately, using the SMART goal planning framework helps make your objectives more effective.
SMART goals are:
- Specific – Explain the resolution as plainly as you can. For instance, giving up smoking is preferable than maintaining good health. Although “being healthy” is a good thing, there are several interpretations of the statement.
- Measurable – Quantify your resolution if possible, i.e. I will lose 10% of my body weight.
- Attainable – Make a choice for a tough but realistic aim. It would be fantastic to make 100 friends this year, but it definitely won’t be easy. On the other hand, it is feasible to make 10 new pals.
- Relevant – Keep it relevant to your priorities and goals. See motivation section above!
- Time-sensitive – Give yourself a time-frame in which to achieve a goal. A deadline will instill some urgency and provide a time when you can celebrate your success.
5. Break up big goals into smaller goals
When it comes to resolutions, many of us have a tendency to be too enthusiastic and extravagant. With the greatest of intentions, we could unintentionally set a goal that is impossible to complete. So it’s important to break a major objective down into smaller, more manageable goals.
Imagine you are the leader of an extraterrestrial species and your goal for the year 2021 is to conquer Earth. That is a tremendous objective! You cannot anticipate victory by just ordering your interstellar fleet of spacecraft to “take over planet Earth.”
This enormously ambitious effort must be broken down into smaller, more manageable successes:
- Claim New York City
- Sack the Tri-state area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut
- Dominate Eastern Seaboard
- Capture the United States of America
- Occupy North America
You can also divide your year-long goal into weekly or monthly objectives. also schedule chores for each month.
- January: North America
- March: South America
- May: Europe
- July: Asia
- September: Africa
You have a strong chance of dominating the globe by the end of the year thanks to your tactical plan’s specific measures.
Now, breaking a major objective into smaller ones is easier said than done. Here are some suggestions to make your enormous objective more reachable:
- Create a list of sub-tasks
- Prioritize and order them
- Use a visual map to display
- Assign milestones to each task
- Decide how much time each task requires
- Allocate resources accordingly
- Focus on the next step, not the big goal
6. Write down your goals
While having objectives is a fantastic idea, it is crucial to somehow record them. Here are six justifications for setting objectives in writing:
- They are simple to overlook. Although it may sound absurd, we are all human, and human beings are prone to distraction and forgetfulness.
- Clarifying your goals by putting them in writing will help you stick to your resolutions. It challenges you to make choices and use clear language.
- Although writing out your intentions can help you stick to your commitment, action is still required. A written record of your objectives serves as a regular prompt to take action.
- Written objectives can serve as a filter and compass for possibilities to be pursued. There are a billion choices to be made every day. When in doubt, look to your established objectives to direct your course of action.
- You may overcome progress resistance with written goals. We make objectives to help us advance, yet change is always met with opposition. When you encounter a speed bump or other impediment, your written goals help you keep moving ahead.
- Finally, having stated goals serves as a reminder of your progress and accomplishments. Looking back at the end of the next year and seeing that your resolution was successful is a wonderful feeling. It’s a cause for celebration, so pop the cork on the champagne.
You may keep track of your New Year’s resolutions in a number different ways:
- Write them in a journal
- Draft an email to yourself
- Store in Evernote or some other note-taking tool
- Print and tape to the wall
7. Share your resolutions with others
“Does a tree fall in a forest create a sound if no one is nearby to hear it? ”
Making a resolve for oneself and perhaps writing it down is fine, but if no one else is aware of it, it’s simple to forget about or even ignore. No one will notice or care if you don’t succeed, either.
On the other hand, your competitors who made the decision to share their aim with someone experience a different emotion. Since they’ve made their objective known, they now feel a feeling of responsibility and accountability. Basically, they are going to let everyone down if you don’t follow through.
As absurd as it may sound, shame frequently has more influence than self-motivation. As a result, when you do achieve, the individuals you shared it with will join you in your joy!
You may start a mastermind group to take goal sharing to the next level. A mastermind group is made up of a number of highly driven individuals who work toward the same objective and seek to support and encourage one another.
How to do it:
- Find some kindred spirits with similar goals
- Meet regularly (weekly or monthly depending on level of commitment)
- Share setbacks and progress
- Stay motivated!
Now, if you don’t have the time or want to accomplish the aforementioned, another option to have the same outcome is to publish a Facebook post informing all of your friends of your plans. Over the course of the year, you can be sure that others will encourage you and inquire about your progress!
8. Automate where possible
Timely intervention can save nine.
The good news is that you presumably carry technology in your pocket that can automate your resolution-keeping process with the use of reminder applications.
There are several applications and services available today to support you in keeping your resolutions. These free tools can aid in serving as a persistent reminder that:
- Google Calendar: Set a recurring meeting tied to your resolution, i.e. scheduling workout sessions at the gym.
- Google Now: Personal assistant that provides information as you need it.
- Reminders (on iOS): Set up timed alerts for tasks.
- Boomerang for Gmail: Schedule reminder emails to yourself (Freemium).
There are “to-do list” and task management applications in addition to these frequently used apps that allow you to plan deadlines and reminders. Here are a few well-liked options:
- Asana
- Trello
- Todoist
- Microsoft To Do
- Omnifocus
- Things
Note: While none of the aforementioned applications will really assist you in doing the task, they do serve as a continual reminder of it.
9. Review your resolution regularly
Let’s face it: if you don’t periodically reflect on your resolution, you won’t carry it out. Thus, continuous reassessment is essential to achieving your aim.
This review should occur at least once every month, but the more often the better.
Here’s how to include goal review into your daily routine.
- Plan a yearly “big picture” assessment during the first week of every year. You may use this as a planning meeting to allocate more manageable tasks and objectives to various weeks throughout the month.
- Check in once a week to see how the monthly objective is coming along.
- For lesser resolution chores, set a daily reminder.
Even while it can seem a bit insane to keep your resolve in mind every day, it is those modest, incremental adjustments that add up to big changes over the course of a year.
10. If you fall off track, get back on quick
Rome wasn’t constructed overnight.
We’ve established that it will take some time for your resolution to materialize, and we are aware that change is challenging. In reality, we’ve already demonstrated that we ought to allow for errors and failures.
Keep in mind the following:
- Skipping an intermediate task is not a complete failure
- Missing a goal by 10% or even 80% is not a complete failure
- Finishing a task late is not a complete failure
- A moment of weakness is meaningless in the grand scheme of things
Setbacks can occur, but as long as they are managed properly, they won’t have an affect on the main objective. Avoiding a defeatist mindset, such as “Well, I messed up once, why should I even try to do this anymore?” is crucial.
And if there is a setback, it’s crucial to comprehend what caused it and how to prevent a repeat of it in the future, i.e “After work, if I play video games, I won’t go to the gym. Never engage in video gaming after work!”
Once a mistake has been committed, accept responsibility for it and move on. For instance, if you missed a study session, make it up the next day and carry on. Your resolve for the year shouldn’t be ruined by a few little errors!
Learn new skills this year
We hope that these ten actions will enable you to stick with your goals and have the finest year yet.