I love writing New Year’s Resolutions. For me, it is a time to reflect on the past year and dream about all the possibilities in the year to come. Here’s what I have learned over the years that I attribute to actually acheiving those resolutions.
Don’t Give Up Yet
If you love making New Year’s resolutions but find you give up on them by March or April, here are a few tips to help you achieve success by next New Year’s Eve.
#1 Sign up for a Challenge with a group that can help hold you accountable.
- I signed up for the 52 Hike Challenge. That is 1 hike per week. Every week I posted my hike to the group and scrolled through all the amazing hikes people were doing everyday. It really kept me motivated.
#2 Join a group of people who are achieving the things you want to achieve.
- I joined a writers group and committed to meeting with them monthly for motivation and workshops that propelled my writing forward.
#3 Create a daily practice to reinforce your resolution.
- It could be you get up fifteen minutes earlier to get you moving before rushing to work.
- Think about what daily habits a person who achieves your resolutions has that you could implement into your day.
#4 Schedule a quarterly review to check in with how you are doing and make necessary adjustments. Put it on your calendar right now!
- I write a resolutions review in my planner on April 1st, July 1st, and October 1st to review my resolutions. I ask myself if they are still relevant and if I am seeing the progress I want towards them.
- You could schedule check ins more often if you need to.
#5 Set small achievable goals every week or month to keep you moving toward your end of year success.
Top New Year’s Resolutions
According to Forbes.com the Top New Year Resolutions for 2024 are:
- improve fitness
- Improve finances
- Improve mental health
- improve diet
- make more time for loved ones
- stop smoking
- learn a new skill
- make more time for hobbies
- improve work-life balance
- travel more
- meditate regularly
- drink less alcohol
- perform better at work.
Create Synergy
I grouped these according to their synergistic properties:
- Improve fitness, improve diet, lose weight, stop smoking, drink less alcohol.
- Make more time for loved ones, make more time for hobbies, work-life balance, travel more
- Learn a new skill, perform better at work, improve finances
- Improve mental health, meditate regularly
If you have a long list of resolutions, you can group them by how achieving one will synergistically help achieve another one. Then you can simplify your resolution to focus on one daily habit that will help achieve your goals.
Group #1 is about making healthy lifestyle changes. If you improve your fitness and diet you will probably lose weight. If you stop smoking and drink less alcohol you will improve your diet and fitness. Pick one thing to focus on each week and set a daily practice to build it into your lifestyle. For example, This week I am going to wake up a few minutes early and do some light stretches to begin my day. After I do this consistently for a week, maybe I will add an afternoon walk after lunch.
Group #2 is about time-management. Look at the time wasters you can trade for the things you’d rather be doing more of. When I wanted to read more books, I gave up my evening routine of watching netflix before bed and instead curled up with a book every night. Now I read several books a month and don’t miss netflix shows at all.
Just A Tweak
A resolution doesn’t have to be super huge to make a big impact. Is there something in your life that just needs a tweak here or there? Try to focus on making one small change to any of those areas or any area of your life that isn’t at the level you want it yet. Every great accomplishment begins by taking one small step in the right direction.
Still Not Sure?
If you are still on the fence about setting a New Year’s Resolution, check out these past posts where I explain how to create successful resolutions and stick to them. If you haven’t yet, sign up to the Monthly Portal so you can get a dose of motivation, magic, and mayhem under every full moon.