New Year’s Resolutions: 5 Ways to Keep Yours for Real

Do you make New Year’s resolutions every year? Sadly, roughly 80% of people fail to keep theirs by February, the so-called “February Fail.”

Well, here’s how to zero in on the right resolutions and stick to them long-term.

How You Can Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

Mind Your Mindset

It’s important that you set yourself up for success. You need to believe you can do it and have the right mindset.

What kind of mindset do you need? Recent research found two notable mindsets in students.

First, you can have motivation calibration. People who understand that they need to prepare and put more effort were better off by 12 to 15 percent.

For people trying to stick to their New Year’s resolutions, this means having a plan that supports your goals is needed as you start. That way, you’re able to keep your motivation up.

Another mindset you can adopt is the growth mindset. When you have this kind of mindset, you understand that failure is part of growth.

Carol Dweck, a Stanford psychologist, is a proponent of the growth mindset. She says, when you have this, you welcome new experiences and learn from your mistakes.

A study on 200 New Year resolvers showed that they had 14 slip-ups over a 2-year period.

Hypnotherapy is an effective way to facilitate mindset shifts. This is why hypnosis is so effective for weight loss – one of the most common new year’s resolutions.

Mindfulness and meditation have also been shown to be very effective.

Carla Chalah of Hemisphere Hypnotherapy working with a hypnosis client

Choose SMART Goals

One big reason for the February Fail is that people make big vague goals such as “I want to be healthier this year” or” I want to save more.”

What you need are SMART goals. SMART is an acronym for:

Specific (focuses on one thing you want to improve on)

Measurable (you’re able to quantify the results)

Action-oriented (based on actions and not just because you “feel like doing something”)

Realistic (you think it’s achievable)

Time-bound (you have a clearly defined time period)

Now, instead of “I want to be healthier this year”, a SMART goal would be: “I’ll be healthier this year by getting enough of the needed water and nutrients in my diet.”

See the difference?

Integrative life coaching is a good way to have a coach support you in defining specific, attainable, and realistic goals. Carla Chalah, founder and owner of Hemisphere Hypnotherapy and EveryBody in Mind Wellness Center, describes the conscious mind as needing a specific goal, the way a GPS requires a specific address to arrive at your desired destination.

Identify Small but Concrete Steps

Another crucial element to keeping your resolution is having clear actionable steps. With the goal mentioned above, you can add more steps such as eating at least 2 servings of fruits and vegetables daily, drinking at least 2 liters of water every day, and avoiding fast food.

This way, the goal doesn’t seem overwhelming because you broke down the steps into bite-sized pieces.

Working with a coach is a fun, effective way of staying accountable.

EveryBody in Mind Wellness Center in Sudbury, Massachusetts offers several types of coaches based on an individual’s needs. Offering hypnotherapy, life coaching, tarot coaching, holistic nutritional coaching, fitness coaching, manifestation coaching, spiritual coaching, and more!

Keep Track of Your Progress

You can put your goals and steps on paper so that you’ll able to see if you’re able to do what you need. Interestingly, there are even apps you can use depending on your goals. Some apps monitor how much you save, how much weight you lose, or if you’re breaking a bad habit consistently. People who are visual, find tracking particularly useful.

Make Your Environment Resolution-Friendly

You probably know that the environment plays an important role in reaching any goal. That’s why when you plan, you need to structure your environment to increase the chances of keeping your New Year’s resolutions.

First, you can make good habits easy to follow. Likewise, you can make bad habits hard to do.

For example, you find it hard to pay your credit card debt on time, you can automate your monthly payments. Moreover, you can limit the cash on your ATM to avoid overspending. This way, you’d need to go to the bank, which is inconvenient, to withdraw more money.

Next, you can set visual cues to help you stay on track.

For example, you want to exercise at least 30 minutes in the morning. You can put your workout clothes and a water bottle near your bed so that when you see them, you know it’s time for the exercise. It would also be good to have an alarm or videos already lined up to motivate you.

Now, if you want to become a better person overall, it’s good to have support. You can ask for help from family and friends or book a hypnosis session or integrative life coaching session. Your hypnotherapist or life coach can guide you towards long-lasting transformation.

So, what changes will you be making for the new year?