4 Ways to Achieve Your New Year’s Resolution

With New Year’s just passing, I think we can all agree that we’ve come to obtain a sense of refreshment.

Photo by Author- “Happy New Year’s, friends, and cheers to attaining our goals for a better self!”

A new year is often clichéd as a new start. With this, we become filled of joy and hope with something to look forward to. We set goals and vow that this is our year every time. Maybe two to three weeks into January, this feeling of refreshment begins to fizzle some, if not, completely, and soon, fall back into our routine habits, patterns, and choices as the years prior.

I have a theory for this that I’d like to call Resolution Reaper; why our resolutions die. The theory of Resolution Reaper goes a little something like this: As we begin to see the word “new” surrounding us in our day to day lives leading up to this moment of celebration, we become vulnerable to being influenced by this word. We soon associate it with ourselves, as we almost do with everything, and this begins to give us a sense of hope. This feeling is soon shared by millions and is even more deep rooted when shared across social media with posts such as “this is your year,” etc., etc. The overall consensus sentiment turns to hope and joy, which often leads to inspiration for a better self/life for oneself, The Motivation Period. Once these sentiments shared across the world die after a few weeks, our motivation follows and is all forgotten of until the next December 31st.

How to Achieve Your New Year’s Resolution:

1. Start small and attainable, you can always add extensively to the goal later down the line. Attempting to have vast results within the first few weeks will bring angst and doubt.
2. Be clear, specific, and lenient. Instead of “lose weight,” try “lose 5–10 lbs.”
3. Switch bad for good. Bad habits don’t just “go away,” they merely transform. Attempting to completely rid of a subpar habit will more so yield the opposing results. There’s an energy that lies beneath this bad habit, a behavior. Find out what that behavior is and use the energy within it to focus it on something more substantial.
4. Remember that it takes about twenty-one days to form any habit. Consistency is key and soon, you won’t even have to think about incorporating the healthier habits.

What we often neglect when making resolutions is the fact that we are merely attempting to unwind an entire lifestyle we’ve kept close to ourselves for years on end; results are far beyond the point of The Motivation Period. Setting goals outside our immediate reach is our first mistake. We must also become aware of when/where this sense of motivation begins to slip and remind ourselves of our goal[s] and why we wish to obtain them. Vision boards are helpful, but not necessary.