Ten Ways to Keep Realistic New Year’s Resolutions

There is often a feeling of let-down after the holidays. Partly because we may have allowed ourselves to let go of our expectations and enjoy ourselves. We didn’t worry about our goals, but now they are staring us in the face again. We don’t want to tackle them anymore than we ever did. Some people start off very strong January 1st; then their effort starts to taper off as the weeks go by. This feeling of defeat stems from not setting realistic expectations for ourselves, due to lack of careful and detailed planning. We can keep realistic New Year’s resolutions in the following ways, to set ourselves up for greater success.

Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions Realistic Within a Given Time Frame

A problem that I have experienced is to expect myself to follow all of my expectations every day. I want to achieve my nutrition and fitness goals perfectly, get outdoors, be a calm and patient partner and parent. I want to spend time on hobbies, spend time on self-care, maintain my home to a high standard, purge clutter, and reach out to friends and family, Also, I want to get through tasks at work efficiently, read and write every day, find new recipes, shop for needed items, manage our budget, and the list goes on. It would feel like a day was a write-off if I didn’t accomplish everything. Instead, I have learned to break all of these goals down over the course of a week, or a month. This big-picture strategy makes it more manageable.

Make a Weekly, Monthly, and Quarterly Plan

I use the Priority Planner by Rachel Hollis at starttoday.com. This tool allows me to make daily, weekly, and monthly plans, as well as set goals for the entire quarter. It also has prompts to reflect on your progress each week and where you went wrong. You don’t need a fancy tool, as you could do this with any type of notebook or system. I take my master list of all the goals and tasks I want to accomplish that quarter, and record which ones I plan to do each month. Then, from the monthly list, I add the ones I want to do weekly to my weekly plan. Finally, I make the daily plan. I schedule them in and break them down by hours (6 am to 10 pm). This is where you will record the specific detail and time that you are going to do it.

Keep Timing Realistic with Other Things Going On

A major reason why many do not accomplish their daily tasks is because they schedule too many. We also tend to underestimate how much time a certain task might take. The Priority Planner has space for three tasks that you want to get done that day, and you record other tasks as “extras.” That way if a task takes 3 hours when you only budgeted an hour, you will not worry about the other goals you missed. You will simply reschedule them for the next day, and not stress about this. The important thing is that you accomplished a major task from your list. You can find more examples of keeping realistic goals at The Promises we Make to Ourselves. Keeping realistic New Year’s resolutions that fit in with the rest of our day is critical to making them happen.

Highlight Daily and Weekly Minimum Expectations to Keep Realistic New Year’s Resolutions

Rachel Hollis’s Priority Planner has a section at the top of each page called “Five to Thrive.” This is where you can check off 5 daily things that you consider to be essential. She includes wake up an hour earlier. Move your body for at least 30 minutes. Drink half your body weight in ounces of water. Practice daily gratitude, and give up one category of food you know you shouldn’t be eating.

In the weekly planner, she includes a section called “Five to Strive.” This section is where you can schedule in time to focus on a specific goal or side hustle you might have going on or want to develop. For me, this is my writing time. You must schedule a minimum of 5 hours towards this goal. This should be on whichever days and times make most sense for the current week. There is a space to record exactly what you plan to work on during this time and the planned hours.

Keep Your Days Flexible

You’ve ruined the whole day’s plan because you didn’t complete one thing. That type of thinking can lead to apathy again the next day and for the rest of the week. Instead, we need to just take it in stride. Schedule it in again the next day. You have the whole week ultimately to accomplish what you would like. If you need to move tasks to different days, it makes no difference. This approach can be risky for some, who might continue to say, forget it. I’ll do it next week, or next month. Then your goals never happen. It’s okay to give yourself flexibility within your days. Yet if you find several unmet goals every month, it is time to make some changes.

Ditch Distractions: Put Your Phone Out of Sight

We’ve all experienced this. We are supposed to be writing a blog post. Getting dressed to go out for a walk. Cleaning out a closet. Then we pick up our phone and start scrolling. We use this strategy to cope when we feel overwhelmed with life. The problem is, we won’t feel better after we’ve spent three hours scrolling and playing games. We will ultimately feel more stressed and disappointed in ourselves.

Instead, know the exact time you are to complete your goal, and put your phone in another room. It needs to be out of sight to avoid the temptation to pick it up. It’s an easy way to spend our time when we are trying to avoid a more mentally and physically draining task. This propels us to a constant state of lethargy, and this is completely within our control. Keep it far away from where you are working. Turn it up so that if you are waiting on an important message from your child, you will hear it.

Make Your Goals Specific

Instead of general goals like “lose weight” or “be more productive” you need to break this into more concrete steps. This will help get you there faster. Maybe the first step is to track everything you eat, or use an app like Myfitnesspal to help you get a big picture of your current habits. Then you add in daily walking, or strength training three times a week. You need to attach specific numbers to your goals. “I will lose 5 pounds this month by tracking daily, limiting fast food to once a week, walking 10,000 steps daily.” You can re-evaluate your goal each month; once you have mastered the first few habits, you can then add new habits.

Another great technique is to focus on habit stacking. This is where you link two behaviors together to make it more likely that they will happen. For example, I take my vitamins at the end of my kitchen cleaning routine each evening. I leave my workout clothes right in my laundry room entrance, so that I can change and leave for a walk right when I walk in the door. Making things easier for yourself by planning a specific routine like this will go a long way toward your success.

Put Time Into Planning

Making a detailed plan is part of the process that does take time. Without this level of planning though, it is doubtful that you will be able to achieve as much. Kendra Cherry states that “experts suggest that you brainstorm how you will tackle a major behavior change, including the steps you will take, why you want to do it, and ways you can keep yourself on track.” https://www.verywellmind.com/how-to-keep-your-new-years-resolutions-2795719.

If you start working on a goal without any planning, you will likely give up when faced with a setback. The Priority Planner has a section on the daily plan titled: “What can I anticipate that might throw me off track?” Answering this question in advance can help you think about what your strategy will be, rather than having to make a decision in the moment. That decision will typically see you reverting to old habits which you default to automatically.

Stop Starting Over

I love the expression, if you had a flat tire, would you slash the other three tires? It’s ridiculous how we can tell ourselves that we have ruined our day because we didn’t accomplish one thing. We tell ourselves the day is a write off and we will start again tomorrow. Instead, we should jump right back on track. If we ate something we didn’t want to eat, then we can rectify this the very next meal. Instead of going out for more junk food, I need to just track it, then get right back to my plan. Or if we did not workout for four days, we should just quit and start again next month. Or we didn’t write enough so we’ll just start again next week.

Instead, we need to jump right back in the next day and just do it. There is no point in continually “starting over” if we truly want these goals to become a lifestyle. We have to move on from a setback and stop setting these arbitrary “dates” for starting over. There will always be things like vacations, special occasions, and social events to keep us from being “perfect.” The goal should never be perfect. It should be steady effort and consistent progress, most of the time. We should enjoy special times without stressing over what we’re not doing. Yet we must be careful not to turn this mindset to everyday life.

Keep Realistic New Year’s Resolutions: Pick the Right Resolution for YOU

Too often we fail to achieve our resolutions because they weren’t right for us in the first place. According to Jen Miller, a resolution may be wrong for one of three main reasons: 1) It’s created based on what someone else (or society) is telling you you need to change. 2) It’s too vague. 3) You don’t have a realistic plan for achieving your resolution. https://www.nytimes.com/guides/smarterliving/resolution-ideas?searchResultPosition=1&redirect=true. We need to be true to ourselves and decide what is important to us. This may not be what everyone else is doing. It is not necessary to be a size 6, in order to resolve to be more healthy in general. Running marathons or doing cross fit may not suit us. However, we still want to benefit from daily walking, or simple strength training exercises.

With careful planning and realistic goals that will suit us as individuals, we can set ourselves up for success. We need to keep a flexible mindset so that we do not become discouraged. At the same time we need to be as consistent with our efforts as possible to get momentum going. Most importantly, we need to treat setbacks as temporary, and get right back into the game.