5 Tips For Successful New Years Resolutions

With the new year right around the corner, many of you may be thinking about setting some New Years resolutions. Now is a time you are feeling motivated to create change. A fresh start is on the horizon and you want to make the most of it.

If you’re like many people however, you may have found that setting New Years resolutions and sticking to those same resolutions are two very different things. For most, when February rolls around, the resolutions are just a distant memory.

So how can you make sure that this year, things are different? If you’ve followed the same path ten or twenty years prior, what can you do to ensure this year you don’t go down that road?

Let’s look at five tips that will help you make this year’s resolutions successful ones.

Get Support

One of the top things that you can do to ensure that you come out ahead this year is to focus on getting the support that you need from others. Not enough can be said about the importance of a good support system.

Find one or two (or more!) people who will either go about your program to create change with you or at least check in with you from time to time. When you have them holding you accountable, you’re less likely to think about skipping that workout or going in for a piece of cake.

Create A Definite Action Plan

The next important must-do for successful New Years resolutions is to create a definite action plan. Too many people loosely go about their resolutions without a firm plan in place.

Say you want to lose 10 pounds of body fat. Figure out exactly how you are going to get from point A to point B. Don’t just try and eat healthier. Get specific. How will you eat healthier?

Which foods will you cut out? Which foods will you add? How will you monitor your serving sizes?

The more defined road map you can build with your action plan the better your chances of success will be.

Set Smaller Goals

It’s also a good idea as you go about setting your resolutions that you set smaller goals as well. It’s fine to have that big goal at the end of the tunnel that you’re working towards but you want to make sure that your light doesn’t burn out halfway through, leaving you lost in the dark.

Short term goals – goals that you can accomplish in one or two week’s time are the best goals to keep you motivated.

With each goal that you reach, you’ll get a nice boost to your self-confidence that will help to motivate you to continue forging on.

They help to break up that long-term goal into more manageable bite-sized chunks, which will position you for success. Sometimes when looking at that long-term goal it can seem so far off that you simply won’t have the energy to strive for it. By breaking it down though, you may it more realistic. It won’t seem quite so daunting this way.

Be Realistic

As you set your goals, be as realistic as possible. Some people get caught up in the New Years spirit and set goals that are a bit too out of their reach. While it’s good to be inspired for success, you need to be realistic as well. If you don’t, you’re setting yourself up for failure right from the start.

After setting a goal, ask yourself whether you have the tools, resources, and time available to meet that goal. If you answer no to any of those, you need to choose a different goal instead.

Create Permanent Change

Finally, you’ll also want to focus on resolutions that create permanent change. Avoid setting resolutions that simply have you carrying out a change until you lose the weight or until you reach a certain milestone.

While you might in fact reach your goal, if you don’t have the intension of making that goal permanent, you’re likely going to end up at square one once again shortly afterward.

Create a permanent change so that you don’t have to go through this entire process all over again. When you do view it more as a permanent change, you’re also less likely to abandon it when the going gets tough.

So keep these tips in mind as you set your New Years resolutions. When set properly, you can dramatically increase your chances of success.

Shannon Clark is your go-to-girl. She holds a degree in Exercise Science from the University of Alberta, where she specialized in Sports Performance and Psychology. In addition to her degree, she is an AFLCA certified personal trainer and has been working in the field for over 12 years now, and has helped others of all ages lose weight, build muscle, and improve their physical performance.

Read more blogs from Shannon Clark