Ways We Can Actually Stick To Our New Year’s Resolutions

Come December 31st I like to carry out a year in review of sorts, and a recurring theme seems to be the abandonment of New Year’s resolutions, usually a couple of months into the New Year. For most of us, the usual suspects make it onto our list of resolutions, which means there must be a way we can stick to them better—even if only for an extra month or two.

#1 Get Fit

This tends to be the most common of all the resolutions, many a gym membership will be purchased and subsequently go unused within a month. One of the main reasons behind failure to ‘get fit,’ is that the goal isn’t specific enough. Specificity gives us focus, the goal to exercise more just sets us up for failure, whereas a specific goal such as ‘being able to run a mile in under ten minutes,’ is an achievable goal. To focus this more we can set ourselves a timeline which will help to measure progress. Apps can be pretty helpful, MyFitnessPal is one that lets you track your fitness and health, with an easy to use interface.

#2 Keep A Healthy Diet

Rather than eliminating certain foods from our diet, we should aim to replace them. Swapping out fries for sweet potato fries is a lot easier than cutting out fries altogether, it’s far more sustainable in the long run and that way we feel less restricted. Framing our goals in a positive way can also help, rather than stating ‘I won’t eat any junk food,’ we can use the positive affirmation ‘I will eat healthily.’

#3 Learn a New Skill

We’d all like to learn a new skill, if we had the time. Though by setting aside just fifteen minutes a day we can take small steps towards achieving our resolutions.

#4 Read More

The fifteen minutes a day philosophy also applies to this resolution. There’s always time to read, be it on the daily commute or just before bed. If you’re looking for a good book to kick off 2020, we’d recommend Shoe Dog, a memoir written by Phil Knight, the co-founder of Nike. It’s the perfect read to get you feeling inspired and motivated.

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