We are already near the end of the first month of 2024! With the new year also comes a chance to start over, allowing us to make changes that improve our lives. To achieve this, it is very common to make New Year’s resolutions. However, these goals are notoriously difficult to keep. Many people find themselves quickly losing motivation, slowing their progress, or abandoning their goals entirely. To help you push through and complete your resolutions for 2024, here are some tips for setting and keeping them.
1. Be Realistic
If you want to meet your goals, you must make sure that they are reachable. Examine your current lifestyle or situation, and build your resolution from there. If you have not spent a lot of time running before, it is probably not realistic for you to try and run a marathon in the first few months of the new year! Making sure your goals are realistic for where you are now will help you avoid becoming overwhelmed and put you on a path toward success.
2. Plan Ahead
Going into the year without any plan about how to meet your goals will make it very difficult to continue when obstacles arise. By carefully planning out how you will fulfill your resolution, you’ll know what to do when challenges arise, allowing you to achieve your goals with less struggle.
3. Be Specific
To set better goals, make sure that what you are planning is specific. If your goal is too vague, you may find it harder to stay on track or remain consistent. For example, if your resolution is to do better in math, it would be helpful to provide more details, such as getting above an 80 on your math exam. Specific resolutions aid you in keeping your end goal in sight and motivate you to keep working at it.
4. Set a Timeline
Another important aspect of goal setting is deciding when you want to have the goal completed. Some goals may be shorter, like making a good grade on an exam, while others may be ongoing, like exercising more. By determining a specific date, or general timeline, for your resolution’s completion, you will feel more inspired to work to ensure you succeed by the deadline.
5. Take it One Step at a Time
Larger New Year’s resolutions can seem intimidating. Instead of getting overwhelmed or frustrated, make sure to take it one step at a time. Focus on one small part of the overall goal instead of becoming intimidated by the bigger picture. Taking things step-by-step also helps to minimize procrastination. When each task is smaller and less daunting, it’s easier to complete.
6. Don’t Do it Alone
A great way to meet any goal is to have a person or community of people hold you accountable. These people could be friends, parents, coaches, or anyone else who will be able to keep you on track. The people you choose to rely on should be giving you encouragement and advice as you go on your journey, and you should be willing to accept their help and listen to suggestions even if you may not agree. Pursuing a goal alongside someone else is a fantastic source of motivation that will be essential when trying to keep a New Year’s resolution.
7. Be Consistent
If you want to avoid abandoning your goal, it is important to build new routines into your life. Let’s say that your goal is to improve your skills in a sport. If you only practice every once in a while, you will make little progress and will probably not improve very much. However, if you implement daily routines that will help you towards your goal, the consistency will allow you to form habits that continue, eventually leading to higher success.
8. Celebrate Small Victories
As we’ve already mentioned, New Year’s goals can be daunting. It is all too easy to get discouraged when improvement is not immediate or feel as if you are falling behind. To combat this, look for ways to celebrate your progress, no matter how small. Working towards a goal is hard, so be sure to recognize your effort and be proud of what you have accomplished instead of dwelling on your failures. This idea is explored in a video by author John Green. He explains that there are many reasons for celebration in life, ranging from learning a new skill to meeting and important milestone. Whether your accomplishments are big or small, taking the time to recognize the effort you put in and celebrate your progress will bring much more happiness than dwelling on past mistakes or future fears. As he puts it, “It’s really hard to feel joy unless you make room for it.”
9. Review Your Resolution
It is easy to be extremely motivated in the first few weeks of a year but then get burned out as time moves forward. To keep yourself on track to complete your resolution, frequently look back at your goal. Remember why it is important, and think about what you can do to get closer to fulfilling it. This will not only help you to readjust your efforts toward meeting the resolution but will also give you encouragement to put in the necessary effort to do so.
10. Be Resilient
Many people end up abandoning their New Year’s resolutions when they encounter problems. Maybe they think it’s just too hard, or they don’t feel as if they are making any progress. It can be very tempting to give up, but practicing resilience is not only vital to goal setting but also to life. No one is perfect, so there will be times when you make a mistake or face a setback. Resilience is the ability to bounce back after experiencing difficulties, so it will give you the tools you need to recover and keep pushing on whenever something goes awry. The most important thing to keep in mind when trying to fulfill a resolution is to never give up. It takes a lot of dedication and effort to meet goals, but the improvements you make and the skills you learn along the way will be well worth the struggle.