The beginning of the year is when many people make New Year’s resolutions to improve their lives. Unfortunately, motivation and willpower are finite, which explains why about 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail.
However, there is hope, and those who overcome the statistics likely employed a method to help them work through the lack of motivation to continue. Fortunately, there are some simple reasons why many people don’t achieve their goals. You can break the mold and reach your goals by following these tips.
Tips To Achieve Your New Year’s Resolution
Create A Plan By Establishing SMART Goals
A New Year’s resolution is usually vague, like losing weight, getting in shape, or being more organized. However, you can probably see why they fail without knowing how to accomplish these goals. Instead, creating a plan to establish what you’ll do to make your aspirations a reality is more effective.
Creating a plan means establishing one or more SMART goals. A SMART goal is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. As a result, you’ll know what to do to make continuous progress. Conversely, when you don’t have a plan, you may only act when you feel motivated, which may be difficult if other things in your life take up your time and energy.
Focus On One Goal At A Time
You may have several goals that you want to accomplish. However, if you focus on too many goals at once, you may be overwhelmed or lack focus when you have to take some action to move toward one of your goals. As a result, you may do less than your best.
Staying focused on one goal lets you be more mindful of your actions. Therefore, you’ll be able to make better decisions when faced with a choice, such as choosing between an apple or a candy bar. It takes a lot of effort to overcome your usual behavior and form new habits. Therefore, sticking with one goal helps you focus your efforts.
Tracking Your Progress
You can’t remember everything that you’ve done related to your goal. So, you’ll need to write them down somewhere to know if you’re making progress. Tracking yourself can give you a birdseye view of all your efforts. Not only will you see your progress, but you may also see early indicators of trouble, which will let you adjust your behaviors sooner rather than later to nudge yourself in the right direction. As a result, tracking yourself can help you manage your goals and achieve your New Year’s resolution.
Start Small and Make Micro-progress
Instead of focusing on the end results of all your efforts, focus on the next step. For example, if you want to lose 20 lb (~9 kg), start working on losing the first pound (or kg). Then, work on losing the second, and so on. This lets you make micro-progress toward your goal.
Think of micro-progress as baby steps. In other words, take any goal and break it down into several smaller and easier-to-achieve tasks. Then, work on one task at a time. This makes your ultimate goal, your New Year’s resolution, more achievable.
Making Your New Year’s Resolution Achievable
According to an October 2023 poll done by Forbes Health/One Poll, the most common health-related resolutions for 2024 are:
- Improve fitness (48%)
- Improve mental health (36%)
- Lose weight (34%)
- Improve diet (32%)
Unfortunately, these New Year’s resolutions are vague. They’re easy to say but much more challenging to accomplish without a deeper understanding of what they mean to you. Let’s make them a reality by breaking them down into definable and achievable goals.
Improve Fitness
Improving your fitness has many benefits. However, just wanting to improve your fitness level can mean many things. Does it mean to become stronger, walk farther, start running, or increase your endurance?
Start by defining what “improving your fitness” means. That’s because it will help you make the appropriate plan. For example, if you want to run a 5k, it doesn’t make sense to strength train until race day. On the other hand, lifting weights makes sense when you want to become stronger.
Once you’ve defined what “improving your fitness” means, then you should start small. For example, going from no exercise to exercising every day isn’t a winning strategy. It would be best if you eased into it by starting slow. For example, you may exercise for 10 minutes three days a week for the first few weeks. The key is to become consistent and go slowly so your body gets used to it, which minimizes your risk of injury.
Tracking your workouts with a fitness tracker and app can give you a birdseye view of all your effort. Not only will you see your progress, but you may also see early indicators of trouble, which will let you adjust your workouts sooner rather than later to nudge yourself in the right direction.
With consistency, you’ll increase your fitness and continue to improve because you’re working out regularly. If you reached this point, you’ve fulfilled your New Year’s resolution to improve your fitness. All you have to do now is to keep exercising and stay consistent.
Improve Mental Health
Your mental health is critical to your overall well-being. Even the most fit person will not function without being mentally healthy. Unfortunately, improving your mental health as your New Year’s resolution requires you to define what that means. Does it mean to free up more time for yourself, change your job, or improve your work-life balance? Regardless of your goal, here are some tips to help you improve your mental health:
- Self-awareness: Be mindful of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This can help you identify potential stressors and triggers that affect your mood.
- Healthy lifestyle: Exercise, a balanced diet, getting enough sleep, and avoiding harmful habits and substances can improve your mental health.
- Stress management: Develop techniques that help you manage stress, such as deep breathing, meditation, or practicing yoga.
- Self-care: Learn to say no and maintain healthy boundaries. It’s okay to say no if the commitment may overwhelm you or take too much of your time. Doing activities you enjoy is vital for feeling a sense of fulfillment.
Keeping a journal to track your mood can help you identify problem areas. Additionally, you can experiment and note the results in your journal. This may help further your self-awareness, allowing you to work through the potential solutions. However, you should seek the advice of a mental health professional if you are struggling. They can help you identify the problems and set you on the right path.
Lose Weight
Losing weight as a New Year’s resolution isn’t meaningful unless you have a specific goal over a reasonable time, such as losing 20 lbs (~9 kg) in 3 months. A common problem when weighing yourself is that you may judge your success and all your effort solely on what the scale says. Unfortunately, it’s easy to become frustrated and criticize yourself when the scale moves in the wrong direction or stays the same based on the last time you weighed yourself.
One approach to losing weight is to substitute when possible, but don’t deprive yourself of your favorite foods. Otherwise, your cravings will take over, and you’ll give in. For example, if you like dessert, try having it once or twice a week instead of every day. Additionally, when you do have it, reduce your portions. As a result, you can keep your cravings in check, reduce the amount of calories you consume, and change your eating habits slowly.
No matter how well you manage your caloric intake, your body weight naturally fluctuates daily. Therefore, pick one time during the day to weigh yourself. Don’t weigh yourself more frequently than once a day, but no less than once a week. Fortunately, your success isn’t measured from one weighing to the next. It’s measured over time. Therefore, keeping a journal is the best way to track your weight.
Tracking your weight can show you how much weight you lose over time. It can also help you stay motivated when you feel like you’re not making progress. Your journal can show your entire journey and help you focus on your goal.
Improve Diet
Like most New Year’s resolutions, improving your diet is quite a broad statement. Like any other goal, you have to be more specific. Do you want to eat less junk food, eat more intuitively, change your diet, or do something else? It would be best if you defined what success looks like.
If you completely change your diet, you’ll only succumb to your cravings and give up. Instead, start by making smarter choices, such as eating an apple instead of a candy bar or cooking your meals instead of getting takeout. This doesn’t mean you never eat candy again or stop going out to eat. Instead, you’re making healthier choices, thereby improving the quality of your diet. Who knows, you may eventually stop going to restaurants or eating candy, but you don’t necessarily have to in order to accomplish your goal.
Keeping a food journal can help you track your progress and remember the delicious meals you’ve discovered. For example, you may include new recipes or foods you’ve prepared or eaten, which is helpful as you alter your diet and form new eating habits. How often have you forgotten what you had for dinner yesterday or a week ago? A journal can help you remember all those tasty experiences and keep you on track.
The Takeaway
The new year brings a new beginning and an opportunity for a fresh start to change one’s life fundamentally. As a result, many people make New Year’s resolutions to jumpstart an endeavor to improve their lives. However, most New Year’s resolutions fail because they’re not well-defined and rely on willpower and motivation.
However, you can increase your chances of success by creating a plan, starting small, and tracking your progress. With consistency, you’ll form new habits, making it easier to stick with your plan and accomplish your goals.
It takes time to change your behaviors and habits. If you feel like you’re not making progress, review your journal and re-examine your goals to ensure they are still realistic and achievable. If not, you can redefine success by establishing new goals that help you achieve your New Year’s resolution.
FitTrend’s mission is to help you along your self-improvement journey, promote an active lifestyle, and help you achieve your goals. Our journal can help you track your workouts, weight, mood, calories, and more. Also, FitTrend allows you to connect supported gadgets to your account to make it easier for you to update your journal automatically. Create your account today and start using FitTrend for free!
Disclaimer: No content on this site should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
