How to Actually Follow Up On Your New Year Resolutions
So, we’re just about ready to celebrate the beginning of a new year. What do people usually do around this time? They make a bunch of new year resolutions. What usually becomes of them? Absolutely nothing. They forget about them within a month. In fact, one study shows that a mere 8% of people actually follow up on their resolutions. This may partly be because they may have made too big or too many goals, but also partly because, face it, people are lazy and need accountability to accomplish things much of the time. I know I’ve made new year resolutions almost every year and never actually kept any of them. This got me thinking, what are some things that can be done to better the chances of following up on your new year resolutions? Well, I’ve compiled a step-by-step list.
1. Make a list (but keep it short)
Simply jotting a list of your new year resolutions and placing them in a place where you’ll see them everyday will increase your chances of taking steps towards accomplishing them. This is what I do when I want to get anything done. School, personal or daily goals, whatever… if I don’t write down my goals I rarely accomplish them. Whether it be because I have a terrible memory or simply because I lack the dedication to accomplish things without constant reminders, I need to write everything down.
2. Organize: Dissect your goals into a series of steps you can take toward achieving them
This also is something I have to do to get anything done. I have a hard time simply looking at the big picture and working towards it… I need to compile a series of small(ish) steps I can take towards achieving it. Let’s use working out as an example, specifically weight gaining. Someone may set a goal to gain a certain amount of muscle in a certain amount of time, but without setting aside certain days you’re going to work out, most likely, little will actually come from it. This may be obvious for something like working out, but what about a goal to start eating healthier or to learn a musical instrument? For eating healthier, you could possibly make a goal to cut out one unhealthy food you eat on a regular basis every couple weeks. If you do this for long enough, you’ll eventually transition into a diet almost completely free of unhealthy foods. With a learning a musical instrument, you could make a goal to practice fifteen minutes a day every other day at first. Once you find yourself habitually following that pattern, you could increase it to fifteen minutes every day, then thirty, and you can go as high as you want (or can handle).
3. Keep a Journal
Whether it be a physical notebook or a word document (I use Google Documents), keeping a daily or weekly journal where you jot down any progress you made towards your goals helps tremendously if you can force yourself to stick with it. Without doing this I would have never lost the weight that I did and I’d most likely never do much of my homework (again, I’m very forgetful). I’d like to start using a journal to keep track of my progress on various other goals I have right now seeing how I’ve made progress with past goals using one. I usually combine this with the other steps and actually make a checklist of the specific steps I want to make towards my goals every day.