How to Make New Years Resolutions - The Right Way

Dec 11, 2014
3 min read

Wow can you believe that 2014 has just come and gone?! We're almost at the end of December, which means it's almost time to ring in the New Year! Woohoo! *cue confetti*

Some of you may have already started your, "brand-new-me-in-2015" statuses, and that's fine. But what are your posts really saying about you, and the way you spent your past year? The tradition should help us grow, become better people, be more in-touch with ourselves and our families. But sometimes, we set the bar too high, and fall short of the goals we've set for ourselves, or in some cases, miss the mark completely. Are you ready to stop making resoultions you know you can't keep? Well stay tuned because I'm going to give you 3 tips on how to set your goals and resoultions the right way for the New Year!

How to Make New Years Resolutions - The Right Way

1. Make clear goals

To determine success or failure we need to pick a goal which is quantifiable, which does not allow room for interpretation. For example, a lot people make goals such as, "Learn a new language". But what is that new language? Spanish? German? French? Or "Lose weight". Doesn't saying "Lose 30 pounds by April" sound much clearer and more definitive? That “room for interpretation” is what leads us to the next mistake.

2. Avoid changing the “desired” goal based on difficulties.

Life is filled with easy and hard moments. Yet, we only grow and change when we overcome the hard moments. However, if we change our initial goal to fit the set of circumstances at a particular time, that goal will always be changed to prevent hardship and difficulty which destroys the idea behind the goal (accomplishing something that we are not already doing) and prevents growth. Let's go back to one of the previous examples. Say you set the goal to lose 30 pounds by April. But it's March and you've only lost 15 pounds. It's easy to be tempted to change the number from 30 to 15 or 20. After all, you still lost weight right? It's not like you didn't shed any pounds. So congratulations for that. But don't let the “new goal” gives you a rationalization to quit.

3. Do not accept excuses or lie to yourself.

So you lost 15 pounds instead of 30. It's easy to not want to see that as a failure. So what do you do? Make excuses. Such excuses can be, "15 pounds is more than a lot of people lose." or "I didn't have enough time to exercise." or the old, "I did everything I could but the weight wouldn't budge."It's important to remember, resolutions are all about growing and changing; and that growth/change process stops where you stopped.

So if you really want to avoid making the same resolutions this year that you had last year and wondering why you haven’t accomplished them, try avoiding the same mistakes. To be successful, our goals have to be crystal clear, quantifiable, unchangeable, and our approach should be “all or nothing/no excuses.” If you need help in keeping these resolutions, check out these apps that I'm super crazy about!

Quitter (iOS)

I'm not a smoker, and I never have been. But if you're thinking about quitting, I know how difficult that can be. Don't go it alone.

Lift (Android)

Remember what I said about setting quantifiable goals? Well Lift is my absolute favourite on this list. It let's you set specific goals for yourself and the frequency of it. So for me, I have set a goal of saying 3 positive things a day at least 3 days a week and saying what I'm grateful for everyday. I plan on adding more goals as I think of them.

Brain Wars

We should all strive to learn something new and exercise our brains. I am obsessed with the Brain Wars app. You can compete with random people from all around the world. Each game set is composed of three head to head tasks that each person must complete. Most of them invovle Maths and you all know that is not my strong point. But I love playing and pushing myself. I think you guys would get a kick out of it too!