Top Tips to keep your New Year Resolutions in Check
With January drawing to a close, it can sometimes be hard to even remember what resolutions you made on December 31st, let alone be sticking to them. (Though here’s a clue: the top three include exercising more, losing weight and improving diet.) A YouGov survey found that while a quarter of Brits make new year’s resolutions, only a quarter of those people actually end up seeing all of them through for the whole year.
The statistics may be discouraging, but we are here to help you get back on track with your resolutions with five simple tips on how to keep your new year resolutions…
- Make Your Resolution(s) More Specific
‘Exercise more’, for example, sounds wonderful on paper, but lacks any sort of clarity, making it extremely hard to stick to from the get-go. Making your resolutions more specific makes them easier to remember, enforce and measure; ultimately giving you the best chance at keeping them all the way until 2021. ‘Go to the gym X times per week’, ‘take the stairs instead of the lift at work’ or ‘run around the park at the weekend’ are more clear and specific goals that are harder to ‘forget’ and let slip, and thus easier to achieve.
- Add, Don’t Take Away
Resolutions surrounding food and diet often involve cutting things out. ‘No carbs’, ‘zero sugar’ and ‘fat-free’ are phrases used perhaps more than ever in the month of January, but depriving ourselves of things, and even demonising entire food groups, can often just lead to us wanting them all the more. Instead of focussing on what you can’t have, focus on what you can add to improve your diet. ‘Get my 5 a day’, ‘fill half my plate with vegetables’ and ‘enjoy fruit for dessert’ all work towards a healthier diet, bypassing the restrictive nature of many a food-related resolution.
- Be Realistic
While you might want to run a marathon / lose three stone / convert to veganism, this is not going to happen overnight. Setting yourself realistic goals will help to keep you motivated and on track and, by the end of the year, may well get you to your desired destination. Rather than cutting out all animal products in one fell swoop, for instance, consider beginning with meat-free Monday, and reduce your intake from there.
A Great Tip To Keep New Year Resolutions – Enlist A Friend!
- Join Forces
Slogging away at a new diet or workout plan is hard enough while it’s still cold and grey and rainy; doing it alone can make it even trickier to stick to. Practising your new year’s resolution with a partner or friend not only makes the experience more fun, it also means you are accountable to someone else, which reduces the risk of taking your eye off the ball or giving up altogether. Try to find a workout buddy with a 
similar schedule, or share your healthy cookbook with your spouse to ensure eating well doesn’t only happen when you’re on dinner duty.
Don’t Beat Yourself Up About Keeping New Year Resolutions
- Give Yourself a Break
One of the best ways to support yourself through your new year’s resolutions is to be kind to yourself, just as you would to a child trying to learn something new. Don’t give up just because you’ve had a bad day, week or month – give yourself a break and persevere! You’ll thank yourself in December…
