Stick to Your New Year’s Resolutions The Smart Way!

It’s New Year’s Eve and you might be considering resolutions for the New Year and reflecting back on the goals you made this past year. If you’re like many of us you might have come to the realization that some of your goals weren’t completed. But this year things will be different you will create SMART goals and have a strategic plan to stick to your goals.

When creating your goals you should remember that they should be SMART goals.

1. Specific: Your goals should be clear and not vague in any way. For example, saying you want to lose weight isn’t a good resolution because you won’t be able to measure its success. But saying you would like to lose 5 pounds is something you can actually measure.
2. Measurable: You should be able to measure the success rate of your goals. Make sure you keep track of how you’re doing.
3. Achievable: Make sure that the goal you are making for yourself is realistic. Do you have the ability to make this goal happen within a certain date? If not, just adjust it.
4. Relevant: This goal must be something that matters to you and is relevant to your happiness.
5. Time-bound: Much like achievable, make sure your goals can be completed within a certain timeline or date. Be realistic when creating your plan.

Now that you’ve created some goals let’s move on to the next steps:

Create a plan. Figure out what you need to do to achieve your end goal. Creating an action plan will help you organize your thoughts. Write down what you’re trying to achieve and below that write out what are the steps you need to do to get there, and make sure to write down dates. It is important to know that this is simply a guide – don’t beat yourself up if you are behind on your milestones – just try your best to keep going with the end goal in mind.

Start small. Adding new behaviors into your daily life can be difficult. But by starting small picking up these new habits can become easier. For example, if you would like to work out more in the New Year, start by going to the gym twice a week and as time goes by add another gym day to your schedule

Talk about it. Whether you’re going through a hurdle or just completed one of your milestones, sharing it with others is a good way to release some stress or share the good news. Support groups are also a great place to have discussion since many members are probably experiencing similar feelings.

Don’t be hard on yourself. It’s important to remember to not be too hard on yourself. These goals are made to make you a happier person and being hard on yourself is just going to lessen your happiness.

This year make your resolution stick by incorporating these steps. Come 2020 you will look back on all of the 2019 goals you achieved.