NEW YEAR NEW YOU? – HOW TO STICK TO YOUR NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS

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It’s finally 2025 and just like the year before, you may have set many resolutions for this new year as well. But how do you make sure you stick to those resolutions and not forget about them within the first few days, weeks and months?

Here are 5 tips to help you stick to your new year resolutions.

Make your resolutions less drastic

Sometimes we set very high expectations from ourselves. We believe that we will be magically transformed on the 1st day of the year with all the new habits that we wish for ourselves; just like how fairy Godmother transformed Cinderella in an instant. Needless to say, that doesn’t really work out because it’s still the old us from before. Without any changes in our habits, there’s no way we will change. Life is not social media where you can timelapse what would take you a year into a minute. So the first thing to do if you want to stick to your new year resolutions is to go back to your new year resolution list and make it more realistic and less drastic by writing down short term goals next to each resolution. For eg. if you want to run a marathon this year, your short term goal could be going for a 30 minute run on the weekend for a month, then bi-weekly for the next month and slowly increasing the number of days and duration for your runs. Make it too difficult and you will cripple yourself with anxiety; make it too simple and you will be too bored. In order to reach a speed of 100 km/hr, you need to start from zero and gradually go through every number from 0 to 100 km/hr.

Make it too difficult and you will cripple yourself with anxiety; make it too simple and you will be too bored.?

Stop waiting for the perfect time

Have you ever missed a deadline and rounded it off? Told yourself that you will start the next day or at a random but rounded time? We all do this. Was supposed to go to the gym at 4 pm but now it’s 4:10 so we push it to 5 pm or next day 4 pm. Instead of doing the thing right then, we push the start time to an arbitrary “good-looking” number. If you want to keep your new year resolutions, just do it even if it’s late and the time isn’t perfect. If you were supposed to do something at 4 pm and its now 4:11 pm, do it at 4:11 pm anyways. Don’t push it and wait for an arbitrary number to start. A delay in doing the task is better than skipping it. As the quote goes, “Do it or not, time will pass anyway”.

A delay in doing the task is better than skipping it.

Make it visible and easily accessible

We’re lazy especially when we have to make an effort to do something. So what can we do? Make it salient. Create a set up which doesn’t require us to make much of an effort to do it. Reduce the number of steps from preparation to starting stage. For eg. if you want to paint more, keep your paint supplies in the open in the room in which you spend most of your time. Seeing them will remind you about your resolution and keeping them in the open means you don’t have to search for them or take them out from the cupboard so you can just start. You need a visible reminder and easy accessibility to continue to work on your resolutions. This is why vision boards and motivational posters work for people. They are a constant reminder of their goals and why they want to achieve them. Similarly, make the habits that you want to get rid of, inaccessible and invisible. Out of sight, out of mind. ?

Reduce the number of steps from preparation to starting stage.?

Stack your habits together

Habit stacking is a technique where you stack habits together in such a way that you are more likely to do it one after the other. Don’t give your mind the time to find reasons for not doing the task. A very simple example of this is washing the dishes after dinner when you go to wash your hands. Your hands are already wet and cold, might as well wash those few dishes right then and get done with it. When are you most likely to do it and when would it be the easiest time do it? Stack it there. ?

?When are you most likely to do it and when would it be the easiest time do it? Stack it there. ?

Measure and reward your progress

If you manage to stick to your resolution, reward yourself with something small. Maybe an episode of a show you really like or a small piece of your favourite chocolate or sweet or anything that you previously you would have done anyways and taken for granted. But before you can reward yourself, you need to be able to measure your progress over time. So, set a time, keep a regular tab on your progress and reward yourself but make sure that the benefits of the new habit are not completely undone by your rewards.

?Keep a regular tab on your progress and reward yourself

A lot of the tips above are based on the book ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear, the Path-Goal theory model of motivation and principles of attention in psychology. So, do check those out if you’re interested.