You wrote down your New Year’s Resolutions… now what? 🤔
We all know a new year comes with new resolutions – but most of the time, they are long forgotten by the end of the year and we continue on the never-ending loop of ‘unfinished resolutions’. How do you actually achieve your New Year’s Resolutions without falling off?
Trust me, I know how you feel. I’ve always started each year feeling eager (and definitely overly ambitious) to follow my own New Year’s resolutions but would never be sure where to start. This would eventually lead to feeling stuck, discouraged, defeated… and somehow a wiped memory of what my resolutions were in the first place!
But don’t worry, we’re in this together and I’m here to help you stick to your resolutions and actually make them stick. Let’s make this year different! 👏🏼
Here are 3 tips on how to actually stick to your New Year’s Resolutions:
Tip #1: Break It Down
Break down your New Year’s resolutions into “mini goals”.
Detail out all the small steps (even the tiny steps) that you need to achieve each goal. Not only will this make the resolutions feel more manageable, but it will also keep you accountable for keeping your goals realistic. And celebrating all the ‘little wins’ 🏆along the way is the cherry on top because it really does make each step a little more worth it.
For example, one of my resolutions is to get back into learning Japanese.
I would break this down into my mini goals:
- Find my ‘Learning Japanese’ books or buy new ones. (This is a super tiny goal but very necessary to get me started! They are definitely hiding somewhere in my closet and desperately need to be dusted off.)
- Research good apps/sites to use. (Also a simple task, but I’m just the type to do extensive research before making a decision on the simplest things 😅)
- Create a schedule/cadence for the first month. Maybe 1 chapter of the book or 1 lesson on the app every Sunday? Practice writing at least 1 character of the alphabet everyday? (Keep it small and realistic. *I expand more on this in Tip #2).
- Check-in after a month. Are the apps/sites working for me? Maybe research local Japanese classes to physically attend? (Adding check-ins every month or every quarter helps you re-evaluate what’s working and what’s not. If you need to change it up, then change it up! It’s ultimately up to YOU to figure out what works best. *I expand more on this in Tip #3.).
- Create a schedule/cadence for the following month. And so on and so forth.
The key is to keep it super simple so that you can check off ✅ each ‘mini goal’ you complete. This helps get the ball rolling and getting started on your New Year’s resolutions is the hardest part!
Tip #2: Stay Consistent
In my example above, I added a mini goal to “Create a schedule/cadence for the first month”. This is where consistency comes into play. I know adding a new habit in your current routine seems impossible at first, but trust me, IT’S POSSIBLE.
📚The book – “Atomic Habits” by James Clear – made it possible for me and has been a game-changer in my life.
If you haven’t read the book, you can take a look at this book summary by Ali Abdaal or this Youtube video by Escaping Ordinary that visually summarizes it really well.
Basically, the idea is that you want to work on being 1% better every day. (With your resolutions, maybe your cadence is every week instead of every day – but the concept remains the same). These are two things from the book that has really helped me stay consistent with my new habits:
- Even when you don’t feel like doing your new habit, just do 2 minutes of it – this will help you stop procrastinating and prevent falling off of your habit.
For example, if your goal is to workout/be active everyday but there comes a day where you don’t feel like working out for whatever reason – often, we just push it off or think to ourselves, “I’ll do it tomorrow”. This is a [red flag emoji]! Instead, just do 2 minutes of it. Maybe that means simply putting on your gym clothes and dancing for 2 minutes or maybe that means doing some stretches in your pj’s – whatever means you find, just make yourself do 2 minutes. You’ll find that once you start those 2 minutes, you’ll end up doing more than just 2 minutes – and possibly even finish a full workout. Overall, the crucial thing is that you did it and you stayed consistent. - Another key to staying consistent is designating a time and place for each new habit. Physical environment is actually really important in driving a habit and separating different zones in your house/apartment (i.e. work zone, personal time zone, watching Netflix zone) is surprisingly very effective in keeping you accountable. Sometimes, instead of designating a specific time (like 7AM or 6PM) to work on a new habit, it’s more helpful to combine a current habit with a new habit. For example, ‘After I brush my teeth, I’m going to stretch everyday in the living room.’ or ‘With my coffee in the morning, I’m going to read 1 page of my book everyday at the left side of the dining table.’
I can safely say that the learnings from this book have made a big impact to my life and hope they help you just as much to stay consistent with your New Year’s resolutions.
Tip #3: Know Your Tendency
This tip might be the most important to stick to your New Year’s resolutions – and yet, it often gets overlooked.
You need to know yourself.
In my ‘Learning Japanese’ example from Tip #1, I wrote a mini goal to “Check-in after a month” and I mentioned that you need to know what works for you and what doesn’t. Understanding what motivates you and what drives you to make actions will be crucial to sticking to your goals.
📚 The book – “The Four Tendencies” by Gretchen Rubin – made me understand my tendencies and helped me understand how to get myself to do things that I normally struggle to do. It also taught me how to work with other types of people.
If you haven’t read the book, here’s a 15 minute summary by Alex Chen and a Ted Talk-esque video of Rubin herself explaining the Four Tendencies.
The book categorizes personalities into a framework of four groups – Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, and Rebel. The below images might help you get a basic understanding of what each represents but I definitely recommend taking her free quiz here to figure out which one you are!
I’m definitely an Obliger (I am the most motivated when someone expects something from me) and I wouldn’t be surprised if you are too! Based on Rubin’s study, among a nationally represented sample, the majority were Obligers and Questioners. (To be exact: 41% were Obligers, 24% were Questioners, 19% were Upholders, and 17% were Rebels).
If you are an Obliger, you most likely thrive with deadlines and accountability partners. Knowing this, you can adjust your cadence to work on your resolutions accordingly. You can set up monthly or quarterly zoom meetings with a friend to check-in on your progress or you can make deadlines for yourself.
If you are a Questioner, you most likely won’t do anything that doesn’t make sense to you or seems inefficient to you, and you may find yourself getting lost in all the data & research before making decisions. For your resolutions, deadlines might help you from getting stuck in ‘analysis-paralysis’ and make sure to add a mini goal for yourself to spend time finding trusted sources.
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Hopefully these three tips helped you figure out your next steps to actually achieve your New Year’s resolutions this year and actually keeps you on track. Good luck! And if you need an accountability partner, I’m here! 😊 Definitely let me know in the comments below if you have any other tips/tricks to sticking to your New Year’s Resolutions.
If you enjoyed reading this, follow along for check-ins and more tips on how to work towards your better self for 2023. ❤️
