Tips on Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions

When the holidays come to a close, and the new year is upon us, it’s time for that transitional tradition. The time where we look at how our lives are, then decide how we’d like them to be. The time when we make resolutions to change, so that we’re different people come this time next year. Making new year’s resolutions is easy. Keeping them is hard. That’s why it’s important to think about your resolutions, and to make sure they’re a specific goal you can achieve, instead of some nebulous desire to just be better next year. Below are 4 tips on keeping your new year’s resolutions:

One of the biggest reasons people fail to keep their resolutions is that they aren’t specific enough. Take the extremely common resolution, “I’m going to get in shape this year.” What does, “in shape,” mean, exactly? Do you want to lose a certain amount of weight? Go to the gym a certain number of days a week? Drink less, or no, soda? The more concrete a resolution is, the easier it is to keep. Part of that is because you have definite boundaries, and part of it is because you can track your progress. “Doing better in school,” isn’t great as resolutions go, but, “move from a C to a B in English,” is more solid as a goal.

Resolutions are like life goals. If you aren’t completely committed to one, then you’re going to look for every excuse you can to let it slide. When you make a resolution, it has to be to do something you really want, and which you will commit to completely. For example, if someone goes on a diet as part of their new year’s resolution, that diet is easier to stick to if they’re doing it for themselves. The same is true if someone throws themselves into hitting sales goals because they want to, rather than because their boss told them to. Desire is what separates broken resolutions from kept ones.

Keeping a new year’s resolution means you’re changing, and change is not always easy. It’s impossible to remain the person you are, right now, and still add something new to your life. You have to give up something. This can be a particularly hard lesson, and it may be a make-or-break one for your resolution. For example, if you want to get that promotion, that may mean putting in more hours. If your day starts earlier, or goes later, then you’re edging something out of your life. It might be your nightly hour in front of the TV before bed, dinner with your friends, or that weekly basketball game you attend. Resolutions tend to push something else out of your life in order to make room, which is why you need to be ready to make that sacrifice.