How to Create Your New Year Resolution
The New Year is around the corner. It feels like each year keeps going by faster and faster. Take a second right now to reflect. Do you remember your New Year's Resolution for 2022? How long did you commit to it? Did you achieve your goal? What did your goal look like?
Now take a moment and reflect on this year coming up… What are things you want to change in the New Year? What areas of your life are you not happy with? If you could become healthier, what does that look like to you?
Ok now let’s dive into making your resolution a goal that can be attainable throughout the whole year.
I guess a lot of people tend to go more towards a weight goal. Well, what happens when you don’t see that scale moving. YEP! You instantly decide to give up, what’s the point, right? Right… WRONG! When creating a goal towards health, it is good to be conscious of the weight, however, don’t make it your main focus. Let’s take a dive into healthier ways to make your life transform into a healthier lifestyle.
1. Evaluate Bad Habits
We all have aspects of our life that aren’t necessarily the best habits. If you were to be truly honest with yourself. What areas of your life do you see as unhealthy? Is it that you eat out too much? Or are you utilizing fast food as a meal option? Are you drinking more caffeine than water? Whatever your bad habit looks like to you those are the key points in setting goals for the New Year to transform your current situation into a healthier lifestyle. You want to look at what areas of your life make you feel sluggish, tired, or depressed. Maybe, it isn’t that intense. Maybe, the habit is just something that doesn’t make you feel good anymore. You keep talking about how you want to stop doing it. How Monday you are going to finally stop and start changing. Well, let’s start those new trends now to make them stick into the New Year.
2. How to switch bad habits to better habits
The habit you want to change can be small, big, or even just one that has sneaked its way into the everyday routine. Biggest thing is how are we going to flip the switch from that pesky habit to something that feels better. Well, baby steps. SO!! If you are someone that needs to go from zero to a hundred, let’s take a pause. Has that been working for you? Have you been able to stick to that routine by quitting something cold turkey and just making a switch? If so amazing, keep progressing, and this section is not for you. Skip ahead… Now if you are someone that goes zero to a hundred and it’s not working out for you, let’s change the dialogue. Stop quitting cold turkey, you are giving yourself deprivation and it isn’t working anymore. Slowly switch the habit every 3-4 days. For example, if I want to slow down on how much caffeine I drink and drink more water. Then for the first 3-4 days I will decrease a certain number of ounces of caffeine and switch those ounces to water. The next 3-4 days I will do it again until I finally reach the goal I am aiming for. Baby steps are going to be achievable and sustainable. That way you aren’t giving up on your goal by the end of the year and making the same goal the following year.
3. What is most important to you
Now that we assessed how to make the change, let’s talk about prioritizing our goals. Which goal in life matters the most to you? Now, if you are anything like most people, we all feel EVERY goal is important. Well, let’s be realistic making multiple changes does not mean juggling everything at once. That is a recipe for putting something on the back burner, and not accomplishing it. When you make changes one at a time, they become the better habits you are wanting. So, once you change one habit at a time, the next thing you know by the end of the year you completed a healthy lifestyle transformation. Ok, back to prioritizing. Think about which one can be attainable first. Make it the easiest goal first. When something seems flawless and effortless, we see results faster. When we see the results, we are more motivated to take on a little more challenging of goal. Then we can slowly make our goals a little tougher each time as we are growing and become better.
4. Can you have more than one
Short answer, YES! As discussed in the previous point, you do not have to stop after you achieve the first goal. If you want to change multiple aspects of life, then more than one goal is attainable. Depending on how the evaluation of your own habits, and routine goes, will determine how many goals you want to set for yourself. The major thing you want to make sure, IF it works for you this way, is to do one goal at a time. Once you have accomplished one goal and made it a lifestyle, now go on to the next goal. Keep making these goals into lifestyle until you accomplish what you set out to make a difference in your life.
5. SMART routine to achieve the goal
Have you heard of a SMART goal? If not, this is for you. Let’s break down SMART. S is for Specific. You want to make sure you are being direct and clear as to what you are trying to accomplish. Make it as specific/detail-orientated as possible. M is for measurable. You want to be able to have a time frame to assess and make sure progress is taking place. As stated in the previous point reassess every 3-4 days, and on a weekly basis reflect on the changes already made. A is attainable. Be realistic about how much time it will take to make this goal accomplishable. Is a week for you? Or is a month for you to be attainable. When we make something attainable, it allows us to feel accomplished. R is relevant. This goes back to the reflection of what you want. You want to make sure that your goal is relevant to your life, and to your purpose of what you want. That values and goals are aligning. T is time-based. This goes hand in hand with attainable. Set yourself a date, a “time base” that you will be able to accomplish the attainable goal. Once you have this much detail into a goal, the execution can be more flawless. Now, you will have times you make errors. Do not get discouraged just revisit your SMART goal and re-evaluate. You can also log your progress with my health and fitness tracker. Click here to get yours for 2023.
Now take these steps and implement a few goals that can transform your life into a healthier lifestyle. If you need more assistance throughout the year, click here to get a consultation and I will guide you through next year’s transformation.