3 tools on how to actually accomplish your 2020 New Year’s resolutions
Achieve all your goals and make 2020 your year!
Everyone knows the tradition:
End of December: People start thinking again about the goals and projects they want to achieve during the following 366 days.
January 2020: Everybody is successfully stressing about going at least 5 times a week to the gym and thinks only about losing weight.
February-March: People stop believing the « New year, new me! » bullshit.
Result: the freshly acquired “habits” are thrown over board and the New Year’s resolutions vanish into thin air.
Emotions of frustration and disappointment are the logical outcome.
Do you really want to let this happen again? Or do you finally want to work on your dreams?
In this article, I am going to show you how you can use this yearly opportunity to start new projects and stick by your 2020 resolutions.
1. Set clear and realistic goals
Imagine having a list of 3 New Year’s resolutions:
Lose weight.
Read more.
Drink less alcohol.
This list seems like a pretty common one. A lot of people have this kind of “projects” on their checklist.
However, there is one immense problem: How will you track the progress of your goals? Or their achievement?
All of these points written on the list are not precise at all!
Given that you don’t have a clear idea of what their achievement and implementation will look like, it will be difficult to work on them.
Let me explain it with a few examples:
- If you want to lose weight for instance ask yourself questions like: How much weight do I want to lose? When will I want to achieve it? What will I do in order to get there?
- The same goes for the reading part of the list: How much do I want to read in a day/month/year? What will I read? How will I find time for this?
Your resolutions become immediately much clearer.
Whenever you find yourself with an idea or a dream, always try to answer the following 6 questions in as much detail as possible:
What do I want to achieve?
Why do I want to achieve this?
How do I want to achieve it?
When do I want to achieve it?
What are possible threats that could prevent me from achieving it?
What are possible opportunities that could help me achieving it?
There are a lot of other possible questions you can ask yourself. These are just a few.
Reflect on each of these questions. Then, write everything down and structure it like a real plan. This plan has to be as clear, precise, structured and realistic as possible!
Leaving your goals in the vagueness will only prevent you from being successful!
“A goal without a plan, is just a wish.”- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
You should also prepare a backup plan.
There’ll always be moments in which you don’t feel like working on your goals. For instance, what will you do if you don’t want to go to the gym?
Better be prepared for this kind of obstacles.
There’ll also be opportunities that will help you stay motivated. If you want to go regularly to the gym, you might as well want to register for a competition like a 5km or 10km run. The money you’ll have invested will for sure be a source of motivation!
Moreover, always set yourself realistic goals. If you want to lose 10 kilos in 2 weeks you know right away that you’ll never be able to achieve this!
For instance consider your final goal to be ”read four books per week”. At the beginning it might be more intelligent to start small. Start with one small book a week. If you stick to it, maybe read one big book a week. After a month of doing so, you might as well want to try to read one book a week and one article every day … and so on and so forth, until you are able to read 4 books a week.
Always try to break your final goal down into a few smaller ones, which will eventually help you achieve your bigger one.
These smaller actions should also be noted into your plan (for instance in the section “How do I want to achieve this?”)
The more detailed and realistic your plan is, the better it is!
2. Get your timing right
Normally people make a list of 3–5 goals they’d like to achieve in the following year. There’s nothing wrong in doing so.
The problem lies within the implementation.
At the beginning of every year, people try to achieve everything at the same time. They read 4 books a week, go to the gym every day, work without a break in order to be more productive and eat no longer sugar!
To be honest, this does not seem like fun!
And that’s how after a month they get frustrated, tired and are not motivated anymore.
Even though they might have been successful in certain areas, they can’t enjoy it, given that in the end, the sacrifice was too big!
Given that their goals are unrealistic, they’ll end up emotionally and physically tired and unable to continue.
Don’t get me wrong! As a fitness enthousiast and someone who works a lot, I don’t say that this is in general impossible to achieve. However, if you haven’t gone to a gym in a year and then you start to go there 6–7 times a week, I can guarantee you that after two or three weeks you’ll eventually start to hate it.
So what do I mean by “Get your timing right”?
Simply don’t try to do everything at the same time! In other words, start with one New Year’s resolution at a time.
Maybe start by going to the gym 2 times a week (Tip: don’t just go once because your body won’t get used to the new activity and you’ll not progress, which will result in the same workout staying difficult to absolve).
Or maybe start by reading one small book a week. Or one article a day?
The best is to only focus on one goal for a certain time period.
If going to the gym twice a week doesn’t feel overwhelming or challenging anymore, try to go there three times. Or, if you don’t want to go there more often, start focusing on a different goal.
But never try to achieve everything immediately and at the same time! This will just lead to frustration and disappointment!
3. Make them a habit
In general, New Year’s resolutions are things you want to do on a regular basis.
If you want to go to the gym 2–3 times a week you don’t just want to do it for a month, but normally as long as you physically can.
If you want to read 4 books a week you generally want to do this also as long as possible.
They are not one-time goals but repetitive habits. The goal is not the action itself but to establish a certain habit.
For sure other short-term goals might follow from that habit, for instance lose 10 kilos, be able to do 15 pull-ups, or run a marathon.
However, the initial New Year’s Resolution is based on establishing new healthy habits.
In order to get there, you need to know a little about how habits are created.
The steps 1 (Set clear and realistic goals by writing a detailed plan) and 2 (Focus on one goal at a time and start small) are inevitable to create long-lasting habits.
Here are other important steps that you should take into consideration:
- Do your new habit during an already existing one.
For instance if you take the public transports read a book or listen to an audiobook. If you are waiting at the doctor’s take something to read with you. When you wait for your coffee to get ready read an article.
And so on and so forth. Use your time carefully and be creative! You’ll be surprised what you’ll be able to do in these little time intervals.
— Tip: this is the best method if you want to form smaller habits as reading a bit or do a small workout.
- Do your new habit before/after an already existing one.
For instance take your gym back to work and go straight to the gym after you’ve left. Get a workout done before taking your morning shower. Meditate before going to bed.
— Tip: this is the best method if you want to create bigger/more time-consuming habits, as going to the gym or doing a whole workout.
- Reward yourself after.
Always reward yourself after having accomplished something! If you have read an article when your coffee was being prepared, consider your coffee as your reward. If you go to the gym after work maybe cook a good healthy meal or put $1 in a piggy bank, so that you’ll be able to buy a new running gear or a new dumbbell.
- Don’t quit and give up too soon.
I know this is easier said than done. However, perseverance is essential for creating a long-lasting habit — and you’ll be rewarded in the end!
There are many other options on how to form a new habit. However, I’ll not get into more detail in this blog post.
Final Thoughts
There are many more tools on how to actually achieve your New Year’s resolutions, than the ones I’ve listed and described here. However, these are the most basic and essential ones!
The most important point you should remember, is that you should never set unrealistic and unclear goals, nor should you try to do everything at once! You’ll just end up frustrated and quit.
Moreover, focus on creating long-lasting habits instead of working only on short-term results.
I hope you have learned something new and that you’ll be able to rock 2020 by sticking to your new habits and by achieving all your goals!
Thank you for reading and a Happy New Year!
Written by Jo-Anne Wagner.
