How to Reach Your New Year’s Resolution

What do you think of with a New Year?  New year’s Resolutions of course! What will your resolution be for the new year?  Get out of debt, find a new job, give up sodas, make new friends, read more books, or lose weight/get healthy?

All across the world New Year’s Resolutions are made, but how many of them stick to that resolution.  Working at a gym, I see firsthand that the busiest season is the two weeks following New Year’s Day.  Yup! That’s it.  Most resolutions will be broken or fade away after about 2 weeks.  Our attendance per day at the gym goes from a thousand people down to a few hundred after 2 weeks.  It’s not because they get completely fit in just 2 weeks, that’s impossible. They have simply lost sight of their initial goal.

Here are 8 easy tips to help keep to your New Year’s Resolution:

1. Be Specific. Example: I want to lose 10 pounds by February 1^st vs. I want to lose weight.
2. Limit the number of resolutions. It’s easier to focus on 1 or 2 rather than 10.
3. Create a plan. Creating a schedule and sticking to it will make it routine and easier to continue with.
4. Post resolutions in a visible area. Put a post-it note on the mirror in the bathroom or any other place you’ll see it everyday with your resolution written on it.
5. Tell Others. It’s easier to let down yourself, but hard to disappoint others.  Get support from friends and family.
6. Change your environment. If you want to start working out, surround yourself with others that do.  If you want to stop smoking, surround yourself with other non-smokers.  If you want to eat healthy, throw out all the junk food in the house.
7. Set Incremental Goals. Reward yourself for getting to a certain point of your resolution. If you want to be a better person, reward yourself with a small gift/treat for helping someone else with a task.  Give yourself a treat for getting an ‘A’ on a test.
8. Substitute a good habit for a bad one. If you want to eat healthier, substitute an apple for a candy bar.

There you are, 8 easy tips to be successful with your resolution.

Resolutions bring a quote to mind from one of my favorite books, The Common Denominator of Success, “Any resolution made today, must again be made tomorrow, and the next, and the next.”  What that means is make a resolution to lose 10 pounds on January 1^st at 12:01am, must again be made on January 2^nd, and again on January 3^rd, until in becomes subconsciously routine in your new successful life.

Good luck with your New Year’s Resolutions!