It’s a new year, and you know what that means...It’s time to make more New Year’s resolutions that will be ditched in February.
However, believe it or not, it doesn’t have to be that way. Read on to learn 10 tips that can help you actually stick to your New Year’s resolutions this year and finally scratch those goals off your to-do list.
Essential Tips for Reaching Your New Year Goals in 2023
1. Set Realistic Expectations and Goals for Yourself
Ambition is an admirable quality to possess. However, setting realistic and attainable expectations and goals for yourself is equally important in order to achieve success and attain the results you’re looking for.
When evaluating what your expectations and goals are for 2023, make sure that you are setting yourself up for success, rather than failure. It is great to aim high when creating goals for yourself, but it is counterproductive to create impossible, unrealistic expectations for yourself.
Attempting to do the impossible will ultimately only leave you feeling frustrated, disappointed, and discouraged, decreasing your motivation and causing you to abandon your resolutions altogether.
For example, if you want to travel more this year, instead of setting the overwhelming goal to explore the entire world, maybe choose to visit one country that you’ve always longed to experience. Want to read more? Aim for 20 books this year, rather than 100.
Setting realistic goals for yourself that are attainable allows you to see better results, thus providing you with more encouragement and motivation to forge onward toward the finish line.
2. Hold Yourself Accountable for Following Through on Your Resolutions
It’s easy to fall off the horse when you let go of the reins, so if you want to reach your resolutions this year, don’t let the reins slip from your fingers.
If you are serious about achieving your goals, this means that you will have to hold yourself accountable for following through on them.
However, don’t confuse holding yourself accountable with beating yourself up. Holding yourself accountable is not about honing in on your failures. Rather, it is about figuring out how to make improvements moving forward.
If you fall off the horse, don’t stay down. Instead, brush yourself off, and hop back on with purpose.
3. Find Someone Who Supports You and Your Goals
First and foremost, it is most important that you believe in yourself and your capabilities, but having someone who is on your side and supports you and your endeavors can further add fuel to your fire for success. However, be mindful of who you choose to be in your corner.
For example, you don’t want someone who won’t be honest with you and will enable the same behavior that you are working so diligently to change, but you also don’t want someone negative and harsh that will make you feel hopeless, unmotivated, and like your goal isn’t worth pursuing.
It is best to pick someone who you trust to always be honest with you, even when it’s hard, but also someone who will provide needed support, motivation, and positivity in your life.
4. Change the Way You See Progress or Success
A lot of times, we tend to see success as a steep, linear slope that only shoots upwards. While this may be one illustration of what progress can look like, it is not a common one, and it certainly is not the only one.
In reality, it is more likely that progress will look more like a curved line consisting of a combination of highs and lows. Change the way you see your success. Don’t let your lows hold you back from reaching your highs.
5. Develop a Routine and Strive for Consistency
You’ve heard it before, but let’s not start being inconsistent now—Consistency is key.
Humans are naturally creatures of habit, from the go-to snack we always reach for when we’re hungry, to the time of the day that we begin to get sleepy and hit the sack.
This is why is it vital that you aim for routine and consistency, as there are bound to be days during your journey when you will not feel motivated to act on your aspirations.
This is where formed habits, routines, and consistency can kick in and overpower your lack of motivation, allowing you to get that much closer to your goal.
6. Track Your Progress
While motivation is often fantasized of as a powerful surge of inspiration and energy coursing through your body, unfortunately, this is not always the case.
Motivation doesn’t always come naturally. Rather, like the tide of the ocean, motivation comes and goes. Some days you will feel like sprinting to the top of Mount Everest, while on others, you may feel like just taking a breath is draining the life from you.
At the end of the day, motivation is more of a choice than a feeling, so choose to continue climbing and celebrate the victories, both big and small. Keep track of your progress by keeping a journal that makes note of all of the actions you are taking to meet your goal, as well as the results you’ve noticed.
Keeping track of your progress serves as a reminder that you are continuing to get better every day, even when you may not feel like it. Seeing how far you’ve come since you began will only encourage you to keep going.
7. Have a Positive Attitude and be Patient with Your Progress
Beyond being aware of your daily habits and tracking your progress, it is also important to practice positivity and patience during the process.
Progress is not a process that happens overnight, and you can’t expect to see results in the blink of an eye. As difficult as it can be to experience the disappointment that comes with setbacks or not seeing as much growth as you would have liked to, one mistake doesn’t erase all of your efforts.
Keep going. You’ve got this, and one day, you will look back in admiration at that person who chose patience and perseverance over frustration and failure.
8. Don’t Let Setbacks on Your Journey Discourage You from Reaching Your Destination
No one is perfect. This means that your path to reaching your resolutions won’t be either, and that’s okay.
There are bound to be setbacks in your journey toward reaching your resolutions, whether you are too sick to work out for a week or you have no choice but to spend money on that unexpected car malfunction. Some may be in your control, while others are not.
Don’t use this as an excuse to give up. Instead, use this as an opportunity to come back stronger and more motivated than ever. Remember that without setbacks, there would be no comebacks.
9. Don’t Beat Yourself Up
Don’t let negative emotions consume you and cause you to lash out at yourself. Remember that self-destruction is counterproductive and will only result in extreme, possibly harmful reactions.
It’s okay to be frustrated, but don’t treat yourself like a punching bag and beat yourself up. Instead, use this as a learning opportunity to get to know yourself more, and move forward with more awareness and wisdom.
10. Love Yourself and Treat Yourself with Kindness
Above all, the most important factor in achieving your New Year’s resolutions stems from where they originated from. Did they spur from a place of self-hatred or a place of love and care and wanting better for yourself?
The answer should always be the latter, and if it’s not, it’s time to make loving yourself your top priority this year. True transformation comes from a place of love and self-care.
Remember that you are a person with value and purpose in this world, and there are always people out there that love and care about you. You should be one of them.
Happy New Year from your friends at Acorn Stairlifts, and may you continue to climb, reaching new heights!
