6 Best Tips for Sticking to your New Year Resolution

Last Updated on January 18, 2020 by MarcyPro

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages – welcome to 2020. You left 2019 behind and you are ready to take your life to the next level in 2020. You left some bad habits behind on 12/31/2019 and declared your New Year Resolution to keep those bad habits away (or produce / improve current good habits.)

We are about halfway through the first month in 2020… how is it going so far? Are some of those bad habits creeping their way back into your life? Did working out every day turn in to twice a week already? (Working out every day isn’t the best idea anyway.)

Changing habits and creating new habits is incredibly difficult.

Don’t let difficulties stop you and don’t let change be out of reach. Here are some tips to keep you true to your resolution for 2020. We are primarily a fitness blog. However, for those that gave up smoking, soda, or want to save more money in 2020, most of these tips will apply to you, too!

1. Set Incredible Goals, but have Realistic Expectations

Move towards any New Year Resolution you truly want to attain. Maybe you want to lose 10 pounds, that is great! And, if you want to lose 100 pounds, that is just as great! However, your expectations have to be realistic, and so do your goals.

Realistic Goals: If you want to lose 10 pounds, and are 15 pounds overweight, that is awesome! You might even be inspired to get to lose the 15 once you make progress. However, if you’re goal is to lose 25 pounds and you’re 15 pounds overweight, you will want to take a step back and make sure you’re goal won’t hurt your health.

Realistic Expectations: If you want to lose 20 pounds in 2020, there is no need to lose them all at once. The expression is “slow and steady wins the race,” but I would prefer “safe and steady wins the race.” If you could safely lose 1lb a week, maybe you should give yourself 10 weeks to reach your goal!

You may be searching for easy ways to lose weight, but is that a realistic approach? In short, you are looking for the best way to lose weight, not how to lose weight fast.

If you cannot safely lose a lot of weight quickly, give yourself as much time as you need. Besides, if you lose weight safely and steadily, you increase the likelihood of keeping the weight off and of reaching your goal.

2. Start and Start Quickly!

Once you make a decision, the easiest part of making a New Year Resolution is making the resolution, the hardest part is starting! The sooner you start, the sooner you can take advantage of the full year. As Mark Twain once said “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”

3. Add Targets to your Goal – Take it One Step at a Time

This brings us to setting up targets. Having a life changing goal like losing 100 pounds in 2020 can be daunting and incredibly difficult. In order to bring this dream into reality, you should set targets to hit on your way to your goal. How you set your targets varies from person to person, but use tip number one and make them realistic.

Going on with the losing 100 pounds in a year example, you have a significant amount of time to lose that weight, take advantage of the time and plan it out! And, more importantly, set your targets in short intervals so they are more manageable to reach.

4. Tackle your problems from multiple angles

When it comes to weight loss, you may only be thinking about diets to lose weight or workouts to lose weight, but doing both is definitely ideal. By approaching your goal at multiple angles, you increase the chances of reaching your New Year Resolution goal.

Also be sure to research multiple ideas relative to your goal. Do not find one idea and run on it; for example, maybe eating whatever your want but controlling your portion sizes helps you control your diet. For others, eating a lot of certain foods that are light in calories is more effective.

5. Hold yourself accountable (or have a friend help!)

If you don’t hold yourself accountable, you will never know when you’re doing well or not. For example, if you didn’t workout for a whole week and you don’t hold yourself accountable, you probably won’t workout the next week. The same goes for positive accountability. If you workout this week and are on schedule, hold yourself accountable and give yourself some credit for completing your goals for the week.

It is easy to talk yourself out of being accountable. It is so easy, you can talk yourself out of being accountable and end up with an avalanche of backed up goals.

Let’s say you ate poorly one day and you think “I will just eat extra healthy tomorrow.” Tomorrow comes and you didn’t eat well again and you think “I will just eat extra extra healthy tomorrow.” STOP! Hold yourself accountable and avoid the avalanche of backed up goals that leads to failure in the long run.

6. If you fall off the horse, dust yourself off and get back on

You spent months counting calories to lose weight. 4th of July weekend comes around and you went bananas on beer, hamburgers, and maybe even bananas. Don’t let this speed bump turn into a roadblock! All you need to do is wipe the crumbs off your shirt and get back on track.

A common reason people give up on their New Year Resolution is they fail at their resolution once or twice and turn back to their old habit. If you smoked a cigarette, just shrug it off and go another few months without a single cigarette! They say quitting your resolution a few times is a good indicator that you will eventually be successful.

Relative to losing weight, you didn’t start your diet to lose weight fast or to see how much weight you can lose in a month. You started your diet and resolution to make a change in your life. And, change takes time! Here are some reasons why it is OK to fail.

If you start eating poorly or miss some workouts, don’t let it bog you down. If you fall off the horse, dust yourself off and get back on track to make a better you.