How To Be Successful With Your New Year's Resolution

It is pretty well known that most New Year's resolutions fail quickly. This could be for a lot of different reasons but mainly because most people have a pretty far reach for their goals and don't approach them the correct way. Something to ask yourself is: Can I see myself doing this long term? If the answer to that is no, then it would be a good idea to take a better approach to your goals. One of the hardest things to do is change your daily habits, and most resolutions require that. There are a few ways to make your resolutions more successful and sustainable.

1. Smaller goals leading to that one big goal: Progress over perfection. When you approach anything in a progressive way with steps involved it becomes a lot easier to obtain. Having smaller weekly or monthly goals that you can stick to, leading up to that bigger goal will entail a better chance of success. It will also keep you more consistent in whatever your goal is. If your goal is to workout more or lose weight, make it a goal for the first month to go to the gym at least 3 times per week. After a while increase it to making it a goal of at least 4 times a week. Once it becomes embedded into your daily habits it becomes easier to achieve and that is the first step. Since these smaller goals are a lot easier to achieve their will be more wins, which will help you stick with it. Bigger goals have a higher chance of failing and which can lead to losing confidence in continuing to try and achieve that goal.

2. Quitting something cold turkey: If you have a goal of something like quitting smoking or quitting video games and they are a big part of your daily life, it will be very hard to achieve this. There are a couple ways to get rid of a bad habit, but it takes a lot of time. Instead of just quitting something cold turkey once the new year starts, it would be better to slowly decrease the amount of time you do this habit. For example, if you currently smoke a pack of cigarettes per day decrease that to half a pack and progressively to the point where it's just one cigarette per day. It's also important to replace a bad habit with something. If you smoke cigarettes due to stress, then replace that with going on a walk since this is a better form of stress reduction. Making a bad habit unattractive is important for success as well. Thinking to yourself the consequences of that repeated bad habit will help.

3. Changing your identity: This is very hard to do and takes a long time but working on this will show the best success. Your identity and how you view yourself surrounds every decision you make day to day. If you start making small changes towards healthy habits, you will eventually look at yourself as a "healthy person". Then every decision you make, you will think to yourself, "what would a healthy person like me do in this situation?" Once you align your values and identity, it is much easier to get rid of any conflicting habits. A goal that is more identity based and long lasting is shifting the goal from "exercise more" to "become a fit and healthy person".

   
   

 Being aware can also help you make more informed decisions and respond to situations in a more mindful and intentional way. A big thing to remember is that motivation doesn't really work in the long term. Everyone gets motivation once in a while so it really comes down to how disciplined you are with yourself. Discipline involves following through with these things even when it gets difficult, or you don't feel motivated. Shifting yourself into a growth mindset is also important. Like I said, habit change takes a lot of time and effort. Don't be discouraged by setbacks because we all are human and not perfect. As long as you are patient with yourself and persistent, it will become easier to maintain your new habit.

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