How long did your New Year 2016 resolutions last?

If you are thinking, ‘about a year’, then you did something right, and you should be writing this article, not reading it.

If you are thinking, ‘more like a day or two’, then you did something different—you succeeded for a day or two!

To be honest, long term goals are hard to achieve. But goals in general are difficult to achieve when they are vague and immeasurable.

Good New Year resolutions need checkpoints and milestones, ways for you to track progress and reasons for you to celebrate small but important successes. With each achievement you make, you prove to yourself you CAN do it; you CAN keep your New Year resolution!

We like to think of the New Year as a blank slate, a new beginning, a chance to start over and do something right for once.

Why each New Year? Why not each New Day? Believe it or not, every sunrise is a new beginning. So here is something to try:

1. Sometime between 31 December 2016 and 1 January 2017, WRITE DOWN YOUR BIG GOALS FOR 2017.

2. Review each goal, and write down 5 to 10 things you can do to achieve it. For example, if your goal is to lose weight…

i. Exercise 3 times per week

ii. Lift weights 2 times per week

iii. Eat vegetables with every meal

iv. Eat fruits as snacks between meals

v. Drink water instead

vi. Sleep more than 7 hours each night

3. Starting 1 January 2017, pick 1 small goal, and MAKE IT HAPPEN TODAY. Do not worry about tomorrow; just focus on today. Success means, I DID IT; incentive to do better tomorrow means, I DID NOT. For example…

I am going to concentrate on exercise today: Success means I walked for 30 minutes, and I broke a sweat!

I am going to concentrate on healthy eating today: Success means I ate apple slices instead of cookies and chocolates when I got hungry between breakfast and lunch, and I ate carrot sticks instead of potato chips when I got hungry between lunch and dinner.

How hard is it to make exercise or healthy eating happen ONE time?

4. Track your successes: Use colorful pens to mark your personal calendar; write I DID IT! with dates on bright post-it notes, and stick them on your mirror and on your laptop. Keep reminding yourself what you did, when you made it happen, and how awesome it felt to be successful!

5. Celebrate! When you have 7 consecutive days of success, do something special. MAKE SURE IT CONTRIBUTES TOWARDS YOUR GOAL!

If your New Year resolution is to lose weight, and if karate is something you have always wanted to try, then celebrate success by attending a martial arts class with your best friend.

Try something new and exciting. Take a day trip to someplace you have never been, or visit someplace you have always loved to go.

Remember, you made it happen for one week, which is awesome, but you still have another 51 weeks to conquer. The memories you make here have to inspire you to succeed over the next 7 days.

6. Once you get good at making 1 thing happen each day, challenge yourself to make 2 or 3 things happen each day. Work up to 5—one for each finger on your dominant hand. You can manage a list with 5 items without forgetting one.

Remembering which goals you intend to achieve each day is important. If you ‘forget’ to do too many things each week, then you might ‘forget’ how good you are at doing 1 thing per day… New Year resolutions run into trouble here.

7. Continue challenging yourself and celebrating your successes, one day, one week, at a time. Remember: you can totally make 1 thing happen in 24 hours.

Best of luck, and happy New Year!!!