How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

We’re just shy of two weeks into the New Year. Are you ready to throw your resolutions out the window yet? Some people never even get them started, because they’re not realistic. Here are some tips for setting goals that will help you achieve what you want to this year.

Set Realistic Goals

If your New Year’s Resolution is to lose weight, you should remember that the average, healthy weight loss is two pounds a week. If your goal is to lose 20 pounds, give yourself at least three months to do it, and allow for possible set-backs, like injuries from exercising, plateaus or even an unexpected illness that may have you down for a week.

Start Small and set Sub-Goals

If your goal is to exercise more, don’t start by training for a marathon – especially if you haven’t worked out in years. Start with something easy that may push you just a little bit – like walking around the block. When that gets easier, add a block. If you hurt all over the first day you exercise, there’s a possibility you won’t last through the first week. Perhaps your sub-goal can be to walk five blocks comfortably in three months. If you reach that milestone before three months, set a new sub-goal.

Don’t Do What You’ve Always Done and Expect a Different Result

As humans we tend to be set in our ways, and we sometimes forget there is more than one way to do something. If your goal is to give up smoking, and you’ve failed several times in the past by giving it up “cold turkey,” don’t go that route this time. Start slow, or see how a doctor can help you this time. It’s the same with any goal. If you’ve failed in the past, try a new strategy.

Write Down Your Goals and Carry Them With You

When NFL all-time leading rusher Emmitt Smith was inducted to the football Hall of Fame, one of the things he attributed to his success was writing down his goals. In his speech he said, “I wrote down my goals and how I was going to achieve them because Dwight Thomas used to tell us it's only a dream until you write it down, and then it becomes a goal. By the time I was 20, I wrote, ‘I want to play in the Super Bowl, be the MVP, become the all-time leading rusher, and finish college, because I promised my mother I would’. Over the course of my career, all of those things came to pass, and I know that writing down my goals was an essential strategy.”

Write down your goals, whatever they are. Post them in places where you will see them frequently, like your bathroom, your office, your kitchen. Carry them in your wallet or purse. Keep them in your car. Look at them daily and make them happen.

We wish you luck this year as you set new goals and reach for the sky. Just remember, you may need a ladder to get there.