New Year’s Resolutions—and How to Keep Them—is a fitting show to close out the year. It’s a longstanding tradition to make New Year’s resolutions at the beginning of a new year. That’s why we chose to share some of our own resolutions. But more importantly, we also reveal the 7 tips that will help ensure that you actually keep your New Year’s resolutions.
If you make resolutions at the start of a new year you’re in good company. A survey of US adults revealed that almost 40% of us make New Year’s resolutions EVERY YEAR! Unfortunately, most of us are really bad at keeping New Year’s resolutions. More about that in a minute. But first…
Most Common New Year’s Resolutions
Millions of people vow to improve themselves at the beginning of each year. The number one New Year’s resolution is “exercise more.” nearly half of the people who make resolutions vow to be more physically active. Next on the list are three things that about 40 percent of resolution makers strive to do. These are “eat healthier,” “lose weight,” and “save more money.”
So, three of the top four most popular resolutions are about taking better care of our physical bodies!
Next on the list of most popular New Year’s resolutions are “pursue a career ambition,” “spend less time on social media,” and “take up a new hobby.” All of these are worthy of a New Year’s resolution. But the challenge is how to keep them.
How Difficult is it to Keep Resolutions?
It turns out that making New Year’s resolutions is way easier than keeping them. If fact, most of us are really bad at keeping the promises we make to ourselves at the beginning of each year.
According to studies, most people quit on their resolutions by the end of January. They don’t even carry through with their good intentions for an entire month! Only 9% of people actually achieve their goals. That’s not a very impressive number.
New Year’s Resolutions and How to Keep Them
We may want to lose weight, eat more vegetables, volunteer more, quit smoking and spend more time with family. But experts say that’s too many goals to set for a New Year’s resolution. So here’s the #1 tip from the experts at UC Davis Health about New Year’s Resolutions and How to Keep Them.
Tip#1: Be picky about your resolutions
That’s right. The experts advise us to pick one, or maybe two things you’d like to focus on and go all in. This sets you up to achieve specific goals. And it helps you to avoid feeling like a failure for not hitting your goals.
The next tip from the experts is:
Tip #2: Plan your resolution
It’s best to plan for your goal. It’s not enough to simply write it down. You need to think about how you want to accomplish your resolution. How long do you think it will take to reach your goal? Let’s say your resolution is to quit smoking. Do some research into how long it takes an average person to kick the habit. Find out about the possible setbacks so you will know how to deal with them. With some smart planning, you will be more likely to keep your resolution.
We’re not going to list all seven tips here. (To get them all, you will have to listen to this episode of the Camp Codger podcast,) But there’s one more we want to share here:
Tip #5: Choose a new resolution
It is best to avoid picking a goal that you’ve tried in the past but failed to achieve. Doing so might set you up to fall into the same pitfalls that stopped you before. Instead, pick a new resolution that might give you a better path to success. Or maybe you can modify a previous goal if that’s something you still want to accomplish. (If you pick a resolution that you failed to achieve in the past, see Tip #2 above.)
There’s lots more great advice on this New Year’s Resolutions and How to Keep Them episode. So listen on the Camp Codger website–or wherever you get your podcasts.
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