New Year, New Me? Or New Year, but Same Old Me – Techniques on how to achieve your New Year’s Resolution

Firstly, Happy New Year and hope you had a fantastic time over the Winter Holidays!

It’s a new year, which means new opportunities, exciting plans/prospects, and starting afresh with new goals to be better this year than what you were last year. You may be asking yourself questions such as:

• How do I grow and progress in my career?
• How do I develop good habits? E.g. Eating healthier, exercising more, increasing my reading, learning a new skill, or socialising and connecting better with my friends
• How can I improve my work-life balance?

A lot of us start thinking and set ourselves a “New Year Resolution(s)” because it’s the perfect chance with all the best intentions to improve ourselves for the better. For 2024, the Forbes Health/OnePoll survey found some resolutions to be more common than others were:

• Improved fitness (48%)
• Improved finances (38%)
• Improved mental health (36%)
• Lose weight (34%)
• Improved diet (32%)

According to Finder, 66% of Brits will have a similar new resolution for 2024 as above, however, 34% of goals founded by Forbes states that 34% of those setting a resolution last between 1-3 months and 21% don’t go further than month 1.

So, to kickstart the new year on the right foot and make it a habitual positive goal to keep throughout 2024 for us, let’s explore the different methods to keep good habits to maintain your new year resolution goals to look back at the end of the 2024 year and say to other selves, “Wow, I didn’t think I could do it but I’m proud of myself that I managed to stick to my resolution!”

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Create SMART Goals – Create an End of Year Goal

• Specific?- Articulate the resolution as clearly as possible. For example, quitting smoking is better than being healthy. While “being healthy” is great, the wording can be interpreted in many ways.?
• Measurable?- Quantify your resolution, if possible, i.e., I will lose 10% of my body weight. Utilize technology to help you stay on track with your goals!
• Attainable?- Choose a goal within the realm of possibility yet challenging. Making 100 friends this year would be amazing but probably hard to do. On the other, making 10 new friends is doable. Research by PLoS One suggests that creating action-oriented goals is more likely to result in success versus avoidance-oriented goals.
• Relevant?- Keep it relevant to your priorities and goals. See the motivation section above!
• Time-sensitive?- Give yourself a time frame in which to achieve a goal. A deadline will instil some urgency and provide a time when you can celebrate your success.

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Install Small Targets to Achieve that will allow you to Evaluate and Assess

• Related to creating a SMART Goal for an end-of-year objective, it’s important to use that SMART goal to be able to have small time-sensitive objectives to target throughout the year whether that’s weekly, monthly, or quarterly to keep yourself motivated, accountable, and in-sight of your larger goal.

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Reward Yourself

• When you achieve a goal/target, treat yourself with a reward. This will inspire you to repeat the actions to achieve your goal throughout the year.
• Warning though, don’t make the reward something that will break your habit and goal!

?Avoid Repeated Failures

• If you choose to repeat and try again the same goal as you did last year, then consider and evaluate your previous results. Which strategies were most effective? Which were the least effective? What prevented you from achieving this goal last year (or years)? Consider altering your approach to increase the likelihood of success!

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Identify Your Triggers – Create a Positive Triggers and Minimise/Remove the Negative Triggers

• Developing any type of habit can be a challenge as emotions and thoughts always come to play as the average person has 60,000 a day! One moment you’re the most motivated person, the next you can feel slumped and uninspired.?
• To tackle this, create positive triggers that will make you stick to your goal which is known as a habit loop. This can be writing something happy down at the start of the day, laying out your fitness gear for the gym, preparing meals, or saving money in a savings account or a pot!
• Identifying your negative triggers can be different, subconsciously you may not recognise it’s happening, and it may have passed you before you realise and might set you back. Understand your negative trigger and what and how it happened, how you felt, and how will you respond next time to minimise the negative. It’s normal to make a “mistake”, however, we’re not 100% perfect but reframe from it bringing you down and accepting it but don’t allow it to repeat. Turn a negative into a positive, don’t create a trial of negatives!?

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Get Support

• Surround yourself with people who will provide you with the following: motivation, learnings, mentor, encourage you to succeed, copy, and support you. Create a network that will inspire you and help you on your journey to achieving your New Year's Resolution.

Remember that Change is a Process so Don’t Give Up on Yourself!

• It’s not a race to the finish line, remember your goal is for the whole year to maintain, not tomorrow or next week. It could be committing to changing a behaviour that may take work for the rest of your life. A study by the University College London in 2009 found that habits take 66 days to change behaviour, but maintenance is fundamental.?
• However, if you achieve it early, such as getting an increase/promotion or losing your target weight early, then reframe your goal, how do you excel in your position? How can you better yourself? How do you maintain and sustain your positive year goal?

These are fantastic strategies that you can install into your day-to-day life but also wanted to add some personal tips and tricks I use that can help you too!

My Tips on How to Keep to My New Year Resolutions:

Make your New Year’s Resolutions Fun

• I make my goal balanced both from a realistic and ambitious perspective that will be fun to perform.

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Surround your environment with positive triggers!

• From a personal perspective, to kickstart every working day, I find and write down in a notebook a positive/inspirational quote to start my day positively. This motivates me and repeats in my head while I go to the gym, work, play rugby, and be happy around my girlfriend/family/friends.

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What is your Why? Find a Purpose

• I discuss this a lot throughout my articles however I think it’s a fundamental tip for life to know and repeatedly mention. Without purpose and a why to your life, you’ll never be able to achieve your goal so know yourself and what you want to be and this will allow you to unlock and achieve your New Year Resolutions.

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Take Responsibility, No Excuses - Asking myself, “Am I going to do X today?”

• This type of question to ask yourself will make you answer a yes or no, the answer should be always a yes as this is a positive trigger and will force you mentally to do the tough task at hand.
• I may not feel like going for a run or going to the gym in the morning, but I ask myself, “Am I going to go to the Gym today?”, I will feel bad if I answer no so, I say yes and I feel I’ve achieved a small goal today that will enable me to my larger goal.

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Finding a Friend

• I discuss my goals with my girlfriend or close friends/family to get them to encourage me and make sure I stay focused/aligned with what I want to achieve.

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Don’t assume small habits don’t add up, 0.23076923076x52=12, 1x12=12, 4x3=12, 6x2=12!

• I remind myself that there are 12 months, I know it sounds simple and simplistic, but it’s a long term so I split my goals by weeks, months, quarters, and halves to make sure I’m staying on track. If I lag behind, I know why and how to make up the difference between resetting and realigning my objectives for my year’s resolution.

?Summary

In conclusion, achieving New Year's resolutions demands strategy and commitment. As we enter 2024 with aspirations for self-improvement, adopting SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-sensitive) is crucial. Break down these goals into manageable targets for consistent evaluation.

Rewarding yourself for hitting milestones is essential, but be cautious not to undermine your progress. Learn from past failures, tweak your approach, and identify positive and negative triggers in your environment.

Building a support network is invaluable. Surround yourself with motivating individuals who share your journey. Change is a gradual process, so if you achieve early success, use it as a springboard for continued growth.

Enjoy the process of achieving your 2024 end-of-year goal, make it fun, surround yourself with positive triggers and find purpose!

As you navigate 2024 armed with effective strategies and personalized tips, envision a year-end where you not only meet but surpass your resolutions!

I hope you found these insightful and helpful! Good luck!