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Realistic New Year’s Resolutions

Jaclyn Baker
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With the start of the New Year, it’s easy to get caught up in the expectation to create a New Year’s resolution. Whether it’s to improve your health, or adding in a new habit to your routine, the new year can be a good time to reflect and look ahead to determine what you’d like to change.

Oftentimes these resolutions have large and even unrealistic expectations, making them difficult to maintain throughout the year. It’s easy to have an “all-or-nothing” mindset, seeing a pause in progress or inability to complete your goal for a day, as a failure. This can lead to dropping the new habit, and sometimes feeling too discouraged to try again. To avoid this cycle, we need to start by creating realistic goals that can be measured. 

Creating a goal based on outcome can easily leave us disappointed and frustrated with ourselves. Instead, try committing to a behavior change that you can complete once a day, such as “go outside for 10 minutes every day”, or “eat one nutritious meal a day”. Making a daily commitment can create a sense of accomplishment while also keeping our goals realistic. Eventually, you may notice a change resulting from all these small steps. Another thing to practice is logging each day whether or not you’ve completed the goal, to find patterns in why you may have off-days or pauses in your progress.

Another way to create realistic goals is to make them S.M.A.R.T., which stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. 

  • Let’s start with “specific”. Creating a general goal can make it easier to drop the habit. The goal “go for a walk once a day” is easier to follow than “live a healthier lifestyle”. 
  • Having a goal that is easy to track makes it measurable. Setting a number or some sort of deadline can help you know when you’ve achieved it. For example, “drink eight glasses of water a day” makes it easy to track whether or not you’ve reached your goal. 
  • Achievable is checking to see if your goal is achievable, ensuring your goals aren’t too difficult. If your goal is too hard, this can lead to dropping the habit and feeling discouraged. If you want to learn a new language, and have no experience with it, it would be out of your scope to set a goal to become fluent within the next 30 days.
  • Realistic goals ensure your target is feasible with the current lifestyle you have. If you’re constantly feeling overworked or overwhelmed practicing the goal, it might be a cue to scale down to a more manageable behavior. 
  • Finally, we have timely. Making a resolution that has no timeline can make it unclear whether or not you can accomplish it. So, like stated earlier, you can set a goal to practice one behavior a day. Eventually, you may see progress from all of these behaviors adding up!

Ultimately, it’s important to be kind to ourselves whenever working towards a goal. Progress will never be linear – so don’t beat yourself up if you find yourself not meeting these behaviors each day. And, if maintaining what you’re managing right now is all you can do, that is enough. Be kind to yourself, and happy New Year!

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4 Tips for Mastering the Art of Lasting Resolutions

Jaclyn Baker
,

Embarking on New Year’s resolutions is a time-honored tradition.

But the reality is that most resolutions tend to fizzle out by the time January ends. However, with a strategic approach, especially focusing on the crucial element of self-confidence, resolutions can transform into lasting lifestyle changes. 

Whether it’s breaking free from procrastination, adopting healthier habits, or conquering personal challenges, the keys to lasting change are within reach.  

Let’s explore the importance of managing expectations, embracing inevitable lapses, and respecting the power of temptations to ensure your resolutions stand the test of time.

Acknowledge Imperfections

Willpower alone often falls short.  Recognize that seeking help and adopting proven techniques significantly enhance the chances of resolution success. Accepting your limitations is the first step towards a more realistic and achievable journey.

Find the Confidence Balance

While believing in ultimate success is essential, avoiding overconfidence ensures preparedness for occasional setbacks. 

Uncover the art of creating a disaster recovery plan, ensuring that a stumble doesn’t lead to abandoning your resolutions but rather becomes a stepping stone to success. Make resolutions more forgiving, focusing on progress rather than an all-or-nothing approach.

Respect the Power of Temptations

Temptations are potent adversaries to resolutions. 

Acknowledge their strength and strategize to avoid triggering situations. Recognizing when and where willpower tends to wane helps make conscious choices and build lasting habits.

Own Up to Being Fallible

Embracing the inevitability of occasional setbacks and having a predefined plan for recovery lays the foundation for a successful resolution journey.

When your resolutions fail, see how you can get back on track. This acceptance becomes the cornerstone for a successful year of growth and positive change.

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Making Goals More Manageable

Jaclyn Baker

Imagine finding yourself in a situation where you’re already struggling to make progress towards a goal, and then you have to add more planning to it. It feels like a blow to your motivation, right? When you are required to incorporate additional planning into your goal pursuit, your motivation may plummet even further.  

Additionally, goals that are too big can backfire, leaving you feeling defeated. By aiming to change everything at once, you create a sense of overwhelm that stifles your motivation and hinders progress.

In this blog, explore the importance of practicality in goal-setting and how to set goals to unlock the immense potential that lies within you!

Break Down Your Goals into Actionable Steps

Whether it’s losing weight, building meaningful relationships, or advancing in your career, taking a big goal and breaking it into smaller goals can be a game-changer. By dissecting your ambitions into manageable tasks, you gain clarity, maintain motivation, and pave a smoother path to success. 

Start by dividing your big goal into significant milestones. By doing so, you create a roadmap that guides you along the way, preventing overwhelm and allowing for measurable progress.

This strategy also allows you to track your progress, make necessary adjustments, and build momentum towards your goals. 

Add Precision by Making Your Goals Measurable

Measurable goals allow you to track your progress effectively. 

Numbers serve as markers of achievement, allowing you to gauge how far you’ve come and how much further you need to go.  Every pound lost or dollar earned becomes a cause for celebration, reinforcing your determination and boosting your confidence along the way.

So, the next time you set a goal, remember to put a number to it, and witness how they empower you to surpass your own expectations.

Make Sure Your Goal is Realistic and Practical

While it’s tempting to aim for the stars, it’s essential to ground your goals in a sense of practicality that sets you up for success. 

Divide your goals and desires into two categories – what is within your control and what is beyond it. Then you can channel your energy into setting attainable goals for the aspects you can influence. Simultaneously, get into the practice of accepting the aspects outside your control.

Categorizing desires into within and outside control helps clarify and focus, enabling you to shape your responses and attitudes.

Don’t Do it Alone 

Success is rarely a solo endeavor and accomplishing a goal requires the right support system. 

When it comes to achieving goals, enlisting the support of friends, family, and partners can make all the difference.  A strong community not only provides valuable feedback and accountability but also serves as a source of unwavering encouragement. 

So embrace the power of community and avoid navigating the path alone.

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