How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

Being back at work and back into your regular routine, it can be easy to forget about the well-intentioned resolutions you made to make 2010 the best year yet. Therefore, before another year passes and you pass up the opportunity to bring your resolutions to fruition, refocus your resolutions now, to make sure you can stick to them this time.

Here are three tips to help you keep your New Year’s resolutions in 2010; we’re not going to tell you which resolutions you should make and we’re not going to give you a workout routine based on your body type, this advice is simple and easy to follow for everyone, and will make your resolutions – whatever they are – simple and easy to follow too.

1 Make specific resolutions

You can’t stick to a resolution if it’s vague – there are just too many loopholes through which you can justify avoiding keeping the resolution. For example, ‘get into better shape’ is very vague and could let you off the hook as soon as you see the first 5 kg slip off. However, ‘maintain a healthy body weight’ doesn’t set unrealistic goals but allows you to find a healthy weight range, it also means you are less likely to binge exercise to drop a specific weight before starving yourself to maintain that weight.

In having specific New Year’s resolutions you can also see just how realistic they are. If you are resolving to build up a savings account, resolve to save a certain amount and you will be able to see from looking at your goal, your income and your expenses whether that resolution is realistic, rather than saving what you can at the end of each week and getting discouraged before the first month of the year is out because your savings don’t seem to be growing. Instead with a specific resolution you can see just how much you need to save each week, and you’ll also see that those seemingly small contributions will add up to achieve your resolution.

2. Map out a slow and steady strategy

New Year’s resolutions are not just about turning your life around in January and having the rest of the year magically come together as the best of your life. A New Year’s resolution should be about changing a part of your life which you’re not happy with, and making it a permanent change, not just for January, not just for 2010 but for forever.

This is why it’s not enough to just decide to make a change in your life, you have to decide how you will make that change a part of your lifestyle. For example, if you’re unfit and want to get into shape, going to the gym for two hours before and after work each day from the 1st of January is not necessarily the best strategy. In this way you can easily become bored, tired and frustrated with the abrupt change in your lifestyle, and begin to resent the time it is taking from you. Instead, easing into an hour of exercise every second or third day, coupled with learning more about healthy food and cooking is a good slow start to getting into shape. Over time you can build up your exercise regime and cut out more and more of the foods which are bad for you and the changes are more likely to stick because you have introduced them slowly, had time to adjust, before taking the next small step towards your ultimate goal.

In changing your lifestyle to make strategic changes as part of your New Year’s resolution, take a look at the rest of your life – not just the part concerning your specific resolution. Taking the exercise and get healthy resolution, look at the lifestyles of your friends and family – are they healthy, do they eat well, do they do regular exercise? If not, consider joining groups at the gym or moving in different friend circles with people who have similar goals to yours. Their good habits will rub off on you, and make it easier for you to stick to your resolution.

3. Plan to control what you can, be realistic about what you can’t change

Having a realistic New Year’s resolution is an important step in keeping that resolution, it can also ensure you have better luck with your new resolutions next year too as you won’t lose the motivation to make changes if you can see the results. For example, if you want to get a promotion at work or get a better job, there are some parts of this process which you can’t control, no matter how hard you try. There may not be openings at your dream company, there may not be space in the company structure for you to move up, or your boss may not have even considered you for a promotion because he didn’t know you were interested.

If you have made this sort of New Year’s resolution, be realistic about the things you can control in going about making this resolution a reality and focus on those, keeping in mind that the decision in not entirely up to you at the end of the day (or year!). Instead focus on those things which are within your control to change, update your resume, start putting the word out, go to industry events and build your network to put your face and name in the forefront of peoples’ minds when they think about new personnel. Talk to your boss, take extra training courses and apply for any promotions which are going within your company. Do your research and be prepared for interview questions and find out as much as you can about the company.

Also be prepared to make a compromise in your search for a new job or a better title. Consider negotiating a raise or a better package if there are no promotional opportunities as all your preparation and extra study can recommend you as an asset to the company in your current position too. You never know – in the process of searching for a new career path or a more responsible position, you may find that you rediscover your true career passion, or find a way to fulfil your career goals which was never part of your resolution until you’d tried it.

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