How to Keep Your Resolutions for the New Year

Achieve Your Goals by Making Sound Action Plans

Dec 24, 2009
Robert McKelvie

New Year's Resolutions - Fireworks 1 by Agnie

The way to really keep your New Year's resolutions is to make them realistic and develop strong action plans to achieve them.

Many people make resolutions for the New Year but more often than not, the good intentions fall away after a few days or weeks.

Whether it is a resolution to stop smoking, to lose weight, or to get fit, the goals have little chance of success if good plans are not in place to achieve them. The resolutions themselves need to be realistic first, but then plans capable of success need to be developed and carried out to accomplish the goals. Here’s how to do it.

Make Your Resolutions Achievable

Good resolutions are goals that you can realistically expect to achieve, but require extra effort. An example of a good weight loss resolution is to lose 25 pounds of fat in six months. That amounts to a weight loss of one pound per week, which is safe and doable by most people who are overweight.

It is no use and possibly dangerous to have overly ambitious resolutions like “I will lose 50 pounds in the three months before my wedding.” To try to lose weight at the rate of four pounds a week is asking for trouble and likely to fail. Keep your New Year’s resolutions realistic and safe to pursue.

If your resolutions are ambitious (stop smoking, lose weight, run a marathon, etc.) you shouldn’t make too many of them. One or two ambitious resolutions should be the maximum.

Develop Plans to Keep Your Resolutions

A New Year’s resolution or goal is more likely to be kept and achieved if you put together a personal action plan that you have a good chance of implementing. Plans need to be specific and be capable of achieving your resolutions. Action plans typically have three elements:

Specific tasks
Timing for each task
Budget (if any) for each task

Here's a sample action plan to achieve a weight loss of 25 pounds of fat in six months:

Walk for 30 minutes before breakfast. Budget = $60 for good walking shoes.
Strength train twice a week before lunch to maintain and build muscle. Budget = $40 for dumbbells.
Gradually eliminate junk foods and fattening snacks, using fruits and vegetables instead. Savings = $20 a week
Reduce calories by 300 per day by eating smaller portions at every meal. Savings = $20 a week.
Dance or walk in place for 30 minutes every evening while watching TV. Budget = none.

(Caution: obtain medical clearance for any new exercise program and proceed gradually.)

Notice how specific this sample plan is. The New Year’s resolution to lose 25 pounds of fat in six months is capable of success because there is a sound action plan that is doable. New habits are required but the tasks that are daily activities lend themselves to habit formation if they are done at about the same time every day. Recent research has shown that habit formation takes longer than usually thought – an average of 66 days before becoming automatic. Most people give up too soon.

Keep Your Motivation High

Before new habits are solidly established high motivation is required to overcome the pain of change and inertia. There are two main strategies to keep your motivation high:

Focus on the benefits every day.
Involve others in keeping your resolutions.

Both strategies are recommended because change is so hard. Look for family and friends who would like to achieve the same goals as you and negotiate common New Year’s resolutions. It is a lot easier to implement a plan when you have the participation and support of others.

Make a list of all the benefits you will obtain by achieving your one or two major resolutions. Post these benefits all around your home so that you will see them in every room. Also post your plan’s tasks in the rooms where you cook, eat, and exercise. Motivation is critical in the early weeks to keep you focused and on track.

New Year's Resolutions – Modify Your Plan If Necessary

Examine your progress every couple of weeks and adjust your plan if it is not working. You can even modify a resolution if more time will be required to achieve it. But don’t give up on your resolutions and plans. Figure out what needs to be adjusted and fix it.

Remember the key role that habits play in life and especially in changing behavior. Allow yourself three months to form the habits that will enable you to achieve your resolutions. Do everything possible to get through those three months implementing your action plans every day, fine-tuning the tasks as you go. After three months, you will have made permanent changes in your life that should carry you for the rest of your days.

Achieve Your Resolutions Through Good Action Plans

You will be successful where most people fail if you make realistic New Year’s resolutions and develop good action plans to achieve them.

Motivation to achieve a New Year's resolution will stay high if you recruit others to share your resolutions and plans, and you post both your plans and the benefits of keeping your resolutions in prominent places in your home. Get organized, get focused, and you’ll be able to do it!

Source:

"How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world" in European Journal of Social Psychology, July 2009. Phillippa Lally, Cornelia H. M. van Jaarsveld, Henry W. W. Potts, Jane Wardle, University College London, London, UK.