Making it a Reality: How to Keep Your New Year's Resolutions

9 AM at work? Check! College at 11 o'clock? You’ll be there! Preparing a presentation for your boss? Delivered well before the deadline! But wait... If you decide to exercise three times a week or record a video every day, it turns out to be a lot harder to fulfill that promise you made to yourself. Wondering why and how to keep your new year's resolutions? Make sure to continue reading! 

Let’s just park that for now…

The beginning of the new year is often a time when we set goals and make plans on how to achieve them: New Year's Resolutions.

It all works out on (erasable) paper, but then...

All sorts of things are in the way. 'This has more priority now' is what you tell yourself. “I'll just park that for now.” 

Relatable?

Start taking yourself more seriously

If you cancel an appointment with your friend, that does not make you feel good. 

In the same way, you let yourself down when you do not uphold a promise you made to yourself. This results in self-doubt. 

From subconscious
to conscious decisions

This thought process happens subconsciously. subconsciously you make the decision to prioritize other things. It happens, just like that. Before you know it, another day, week or even a year has gone by. Therefore it is important that you make the decision to keep the promise you made to yourself consciously. 

How do you make sure you act on the promises you made to yourself? Or how to keep new year's resolutions? Below we’ve listed 6 tips:

1. Make yourself a priority

Put yourself first by putting yourself on your to-do list quite literally. Have you decided you need more rest this year? Plan those chill moments in your Calendar.

1. Make it smaller

Goals we set for ourselves are usually large, unattainable goals. For example: ‘This year I want to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle.’ But what does that mean? The goal can seem so big that you postpone it endlessly and don’t really know where to start. 

So what you need to do is think of smaller steps that you can immediately carry out. For example: ‘This year, I want to exchange my single-use products for reusable alternatives.’ You can start by making a list of all single-use products that you use regularly. You could start by replacing your paper notebook with a reusable one. Check! That’s already one thing you can erase from your list! Feels good right? Completing a task you set out for yourself gives you a satisfactory feeling and motivates you to pick up on other plans as well. 

1. Cause & action

We keep appointments for work or with others more often because there are direct consequences if the expectations aren’t met. The appointment with yourself feels open-ended. Without obligation. 'Good intentions'. The word 'intention' says enough. You intend to do something, but you don't actually have to do it. 

Writing it down or attaching a consequence to it makes it more concrete. For example, by linking a reward to achieving your goal (although that is a gift in itself of course). For example, by buying something for yourself that you have wanted for a long time.

1. You can't do it all!

It is better to adjust your goal as opposed to not doing it at all. Be honest and realistic in what is achievable. That's the ultimate thing you have to know about how to keep a new year's resolution. Without judgment or disappointment! We all have large ambitions and that's great, but we tend to overestimate ourselves which leads to disappointment. We don't want that! 

We intend (there we go again) to go to the gym at least three times a week. After a while, you realize that this doesn’t really fit into your weekly schedule. At the end of the week you find yourself extremely exhausted and disappointed because you simply couldn’t manage to do it all. Thoughts like ‘It might be best to just quit altogether’ go through your mind. Stop that! Now!

If you look at it realistically, you could manage to go to the gym two times a week. Plus that leaves you with one easy-going night on the couch with a good book or something. Win-win! So in conclusion: Adjust instead of canceling your plans! 

P.s. with an erasable notebook or calendar you can easily adjust your goals or appointments. Simply erase and rearrange!

1. Habits

We are and will always be creatures of habit and breaking through these habits has proven to be difficult for most of us. When we don’t do something consistently, it’s really tempting to fall back into old patterns. Try to turn your intention into your daily routine and turn it into a habit. Before you know it, you won’t even think about it anymore and it becomes second nature. Track it using the habit tracker in your Do-book, for example. In this blog you’ll read more about this topic. 

1. Social accountability

Challenge a friend to join you in your quest! This way you can keep each other motivated. Added bonus: it’s also a lot of fun to chase after your goals together! One team! You can also share your New Year resolutions through social media to keep yourself accountable in that way.