Welcome to 2023! It’s a brand new year and with that comes the natural habit to look back and reflect on your year, your habits and your lifestyle and consider making a big change for the better. Making a resolution or setting a goal is the first step in making a change to your lifestyle or behaviour. Goals can be big or small, short or long term and they can be geared towards creating a new habit or reducing one we already have. Whether you want to get more sleep, eat better, or be more physically active, your goals will be the stepping stones to get you on the right track. Resolutions are a type of goal, and regardless of what you are hoping to achieve, these tips will help make sure you are more successful at crushing them!
- Don’t be vague! Saying I want to eat healthier is a great goal, but in order for you to work towards that, we need to set a more specific plan. Saying “I want to eat a fruit or vegetable with every meal” is a more specific way to achieve the long term goal of eating healthier. If your goals are exercise related then a specific way to work towards exercising more is to reach a certain step goal each day or to make it to the gym a specific number of days per week. By making your goals more specific you are able to track your progress better and feel more accomplished when you complete what you set out to do!
- Less is more! Choose 1 or 2 goals to focus on in order to be more successful. If you try to add or change too many things at the same time it can become overwhelming. If there are multiple goals on your to-do list, start with what you feel is most important and focus on making efforts towards that first. Success in one resolution can be great motivation to tackle another. So don’t take on too much at one time, choose what matters to you most and get to work!
- Start small! New Year’s resolutions can often be very ambitious and that is a major reason why so many people fail to achieve them. Behaviour changes are hard! So make it easier on yourself to build a new habit by starting small and building up slowly over the weeks and months. Achieving multiple small goals will help encourage you to continue on your path to self betterment. So don’t set big lofty goals that will be difficult to achieve and discouraging when you can’t follow through.
- It’s not ALL or nothing! Some days you aren’t going to reach your goals. If you have an all or nothing mentality with behaviour change, you are much more likely to fail. Stop expecting yourself to commit 110% to a new habit. If you aren’t able to attain your goal one week, try again the next. If you are consistently missing the mark revisit tip #2 and start smaller with your goal to make it more realistically achievable for you! Make adjustments to make the goal work better for you so that you can stay on track. But give yourself some slack to be able to fail and try again, don’t give up entirely!
- Talk about it! Don’t keep your resolution a secret from your friends and family. They should be your biggest supporters in bettering yourself! So explain your goals and your plan of action to achieve them. Talking about your plans with other people will make you more likely to follow through. Ask for help in holding you accountable or have your family and friends join to make reaching your goal more fun!
- Get Help! Asking friends and family can help with adhering to your plans but for some goals you might need the help of a professional. If your goals are related to diet, physical activity or exercise it can make a huge difference to see a Dietician or Personal Trainer to get more guidance in your plans. Whether you are a seasoned fitness enthusiast or a gym newbie, getting a fresh perspective from a qualified exercise professional can help personalize your plans to your current abilities and tailor your activity to best reach the goals you have set out for yourself.
Making a New Year’s resolution is easy, but sticking to it is a challenge for everyone. A new year is a great time to try to build healthier habits but setting goals to better yourself can be done all year long so don’t wait around for January 1st to start working on a plan to improve. Hopefully these tips can make it a little bit easier for you to be successful in achieving whatever goals you have set for yourself and make your new habits last!
