Though New Year resolutions can vary depending on one’s situation, lifestyle, personality and typical needs, most New Year resolutions that people make fall under some common topics we list here.
- Healthy food practices
- Exercising more
- Losing weight
- Learning a new skill or doing a new course
- Quitting addictive habits
- Increasing the savings and spending less
- Visit some new places
- Improving the relationships with friends and family
- Finding ways to live life more meaningfully and purposefully
- Reading new books
There is no doubt that we all make New Year resolutions with the best of our intentions. In fact, we are highly enthusiastic about our resolutions before and while landing on the New Year. However, when the freshness of the New Year fades away, slowly we tend to lose focus and lower the efforts and the resolutions we were passionate about during the wake of the year get diluted and even forgotten in course of time.
Journal of Clinical Psychology has published a study which says not more than 46% of people making New Year resolutions are successful. In other words, more than half of the resolvers fail to achieve their resolutions.
This study also worked with non-resolvers or people who do not make any resolutions for the New Year, but had some goals they wanted to achieve in the New Year. The observations of the study bring to surface that only around 4% of people who do not make resolutions are able to succeed with their goals.
While you will never want to belong to the team of people who fail to achieve their dreams, here is a feasible and effective plan to follow through your New Year resolutions effectively.
- Prepare yourself mentally to move firmly with the change you want
- Set a goal that can really truly motivate you
- Limit the resolutions to a scale you can manage
- Be very specific and clear about your resolutions
- Break up your bigger goals into smaller and easily achievable modules
- Write down your goals and store it on a note-taking tool or print it and affix it to the wall
- Share your resolutions with others who can motivate you and would want to see you keep moving successfully.
- Make the best use of automating tools like Google Calendar, Reminders, Boomerang for Gmail, and Google Now to support your progress.
- Review your resolutions and progress from time to time in pre-defined regular intervals.
- Whenever you happen to lose track of the resolutions, get back on quickly
New Year resolutions are great tools to support your progress, development and a positive change and they help land on your goals and dreams effectively and quickly. However, the rate of success with New Year resolutions depends on your commitment, sincerity, diligence and the practicable strategies you develop like the one given above to keep yourself moving steadily and surely.