How To Stick To Your New Year’s Resolutions - All Year Round

It’s 2019! We’ve made it through yet another year, and looking back, many of us have decided it’s time to bite the bullet – get rid of those stubborn 5 pounds, find a new job, take up a new hobby, finally be tidy, see more of friends and family (or less!), give up smoking… the list goes on. But by February, 80% of us will already have dropped the ball and given up on the ‘New Year, New Me’ mantra. Over the past year, I’ve experimented a lot with my own goals, whether personal or work, and I’ve found 5 keys to not only achieving, but maintaining your objectives.

Set milestones – a lot of people give themselves something like ‘weigh 50kg by June!’. Then, as the date creeps closer and the scale doesn’t go down, you just – well – give up. What’s the point? You’ll never get there. Too many lose out to the win/lose mindset, instead of taking a few moments to plan out what the journey looks like. If you’re looking to lose weight, what’s a reasonable monthly goal towards June? A kilo a month? Instead of judging yourself against your end goal, you then have checkpoints to help you figure out whether you’re going about things in the right way

Find a cheerleader/whistle-blower – if you keep your resolutions to yourself, it’s easy to forget them when you fail. No one knows but you, right? Well, that’s exactly the problem. Finding someone who helps to keep you accountable will help you motivate yourself when the stress piles on and life gets in the way. Whether you prefer someone to root for you or you want someone who will give you a stern talking-to, get this person on board for moral support. Better still, find someone with similar goals who will undertake the journey with you so that you both keep yourselves motivated along the way.

Forgive yourself – no one is perfect. Some smokers try to quit 20, 30, 40 times before they can completely wean themselves off, but the real go-getters are those who don’t give into ‘well, I already had one, might as well have another’ thoughts. Instead, they count the days they went without as successes, and a milestone to beat. 42 days without? Alright, let’s go for 43 and more this time. Instead of beating themselves up, they just… beat themselves. It’s not a fail/success situation, it’s a journey with dips and peaks. Some days won’t be as good as others, but you can’t let that derail your whole path.

Have a day off – it’s hard to go from zero to hero. Give yourself a day to do whatever you want. I dislike calling these ‘cheating’ because they always make me feel guilty, when really it’s a reward along the way for sticking to the plan. It’s a small reminder to say hey, you’re pretty awesome for even starting this journey, you know? And whilst I’m downing a brownie, or sipping some tea on an anti-caffeine streak, it reminds me to enjoy every moment of what I’m doing.

Know your WHY – this is the key to staying determined. Instead of saying ‘I want to lose weight’, know why: ‘I want to live a healthy lifestyle, be able to sprint in an emergency, keep up with the children’. Having a firm picture of what you can achieve when you reach your resolution will keep you strong during the moments when you feel you can’t go on. Without a reason, it’s far too easy to wave away your goals as a silly whim – why change now when you’ve been fine so far. It’s because you want to be better. And you’ll get there, I promise.

And so, a shameful secret of mine is that I still can’t drive. Children approximately half my age are zooming around on four wheels whilst I navigate TfL traffic and delayed tubes. I find driving anxiety-inducing, but even more fierce is my determination to defeat my inability to get myself places, or help friends out when they move. It’s also hindering my holiday choices when there are hard to reach spots, or if friends want to do a road trip, and this is what’s really powering my desire to learn. So, my timetable looks something like this: 1x driving lesson per week in Jan/Feb + book driving test in March (setting weekly checkpoints + milestone).

Since it’s only once a week, I don’t need a day off the same way I would if I were doing something daily, but I’m going to ensure that I get an hour of driving in a week at the very least. I don’t expect to pass the first time (forgiveness), but when I do pass, my family will take me out to celebrate. I’m rather looking forwards to triumphantly turning my green provisional license to match everyone else’s, and stealing my brother’s car to zoom around like a mad P driver for a while.

Good luck to you all with whatever you choose to achieve – and remember, you can set yourself a goal any time. You don’t need to wait a year. Just go for it. Let me know how it goes!