Tips to Setting New Year’s Resolutions You Can Keep

Guest post by Lisa Swan.

It’s that time of the year again, where you put down the eggnog and start thinking about New Year’s resolutions. Gyms know that lots of people will put exercising as a New Year’s resolution, and will swarm local gyms for the first few weeks of the year. Yet by the end of the month, most gyms’ crowds have thinned to pre-January levels. The same goes with weight-loss, smoking, or other goals like saving money.
So why do so many people break their New Year’s resolutions so quickly, or not succeed at their goals? There are several big reasons:
Your resolutions are too unrealistic: Despite what you may see on infomercials and reality TV, you are not going to be able to realistically lose 30 pounds in January. Nor will you be able to pay off $20,000 in credit card debt that quickly, even if you did get a big raise.
You try to do too much, too soon: Back to our gym example – if you try to run five miles a day, when you have been sitting on the couch all of 2012, all attempting to do that much will do isl put you in pain. Then you can’t work out, and you get discouraged, and you give up.
You try to do too many resolutions at once: While some resolutions, like those involving weight loss and exercise, go hand-in-hand, others do not. Unless you have both a scholarship and an unaffected way of making money, you’re not going to be able to realistically go back to college and pay extra on your mortgage. Prioritize.
Your goals aren’t measurable or trackable: Simply wanting to eat healthier per se isn’t necessarily a measurable New Year’s resolution. You could put lettuce on your burger and still consider yourself as eating healthy. Career coach experts say you should come up with a trackable goal, like eating a healthy salad every day if you are trying to eat better.
You don’t keep a no-fail environment: As Dr. Phil always says, willpower isn’t enough. It only gets you so far. If you are spending too much on shopping with credit cards, and want to stop using them, you need to stop going to the mall and block home-shopping channels from your remote control. Because all it takes is one weak moment, one bad day, and your finances could be a mess again.
Fortunately, there is a better way to succeed at your New Year’s resolutions. Let’s suppose you want to make exercise a regular part of your life. Why not start with the goal of 20 to 30 minutes of walking on a treadmill three times a week, for the first two weeks. Then add another day for the third and fourth weeks. Then increase your time after the first month, and so on. Then mix it up and use an elliptical machine or a bicycle, gradually adding time and increasing the resistance on the machines as you grow and improve.
Scheduling also helps – pencil in the things you want to achieve into your daily or weekly schedule, and have a plan on how to do them.
Life coach experts say that the most important way to achieve your New Year’s resolutions is to write them down, and put your list on a place where you can see them every day. So if you have a weight loss goal, have it on your refrigerator so you are reminded of your New Year’s resolution when you go for a snack.
What do you want to resolve to do in 2013?
Lisa Swan writes for a variety of sites, including MeredithHaberfeld.com.