Tips for Creating and Sticking to Realistic New Year's Resolutions

Image courtesy of [sattva] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When it comes to New Year's resolutions, we all know the old make a list, hope to keep it, but give up early in the new year habit most of us have. I think the start of a new year always holds the promise of something better. New opportunities, new plans, new goals, and that's an awesome thing...keeping moving forward. Whether we've had what we'd consider to be a "good year" or not, we all deal with crappy circumstances at some point during the year and the new year holds the promise of a fresh start and a new beginning.

So with keeping our goals for the new year, I think the biggest thing we can do is be realistic about our goals and the time we give ourselves to accomplish them. I think that's why so many of us toss aside most of the resolutions we made for the new year, because we were reaching too high. I'm not saying setting the bar high is a bad thing, but expecting more of ourselves than we can realistically accomplish because of time, money, etc. sets us up for failure.

-New Year's Resolutions for Health: I think a very common goal we make for the new year is to be more physically fit, to eat healthier, to make positive life changes for our health and well being and to lose weight. So when it comes to setting realistic goals for weight loss and fitness, I think it's better to say, I will make it a priority to exercise at least 30 minutes a day most days of the week rather than saying, I will lose 5-10 pounds a week. I think the first is an easier goal to keep, squeezing in 30 minutes of exercising a day even if it's in 10 minute increments. Saying you want to lose such an amount a week can set you up for disappointment and makes it more likely you'll give up on your goals. It's possible to lose the amount of weight you want, but what happens if you aren't meeting the mark?

For diet new year's resolutions, I think it's great to start with small changes instead of vowing to never touch sweets again and go on some crazy fad diet like eating nothing but lettuce or drinking fruit juice for a week straight and nothing else. Not only is it healthier to make small changes, but it's easier to stick with. For instance, cutting out juice and soda to eliminate all that extra sugar that contributes to weight gain.

-Reward Yourself When you Reach your Goals: Sometimes just meeting our goals is incentive enough to keep on the right path and the sense of accomplishment is reward enough. I think the appeal of a reward can be really helpful in keeping on the right path. Promising to do something for yourself once you've accomplished what you set out to do is just extra incentive.

-Be Realistic of your Expectations of Yourself When you Make your Resolutions, Then Don't Give Up. Don't give up on or modify the goals you've set for yourself once you've made them or you may just give up completely or not really accomplish what you set out to do. Instead, be realistic of yourself and your current circumstances when you make your list of new year's resolutions.