Making a new Years Resolution you can Stick to
Every new year, we say the same things: "I am going to exercise three days a week... I am going to quit smoking... I am going to eat healthy... for a whole week." New Years Resolutions have been cliche for a long time. In my life, I have been able to stick to one resolution, and it wasn't made on new years. The problem with me, and the problem with so many annual self-improvers, is that we choose goals that are impossible to stick with. We plan life improvements that we cannot possibly continue over an extended period of time. Or, we make vague resolutions, which we slowly stray from, and eventually forget aboutcompletely. Sure, will power is part of it, but what it comes down to, is inappropriate goals.
So what can we do? We can be realistic. We can be specific. Most importantly, we can take it easy on ourselves if we falter in our resolutions.
Choosing a realistic goal is A#1 most important when looking for self improvement. We'd all like to give up red meat. We could probably keep it up till the end of January. Unfortunately, the first time we go to a fancy restaurant for a friend's birthday, we order a steak, and don't think twice about it. A more realistic goal would be to reduce our intake of red meat. Maybe, we could decide to eat it once a week. The idea is to make improvements using moderate steps.
Being specific is an often overlooked aspect of a good resolution. A claim of, "I am going to eat healthy all year," can mean anything from a low-fat, vegetable, fruit, and legume diet, to only having one desert instead of the usual two. Our lofty nebulous goals always begin with promise. As the year goes on, we all become lawyers, and pick at the wording of our resolutions, deciding that we can legally do such and such, without actually violating the contract we made with ourselves. It's all semantics.
The last aspect for keeping a new year's resolution, is to work on will-power. For most, this is a trait you need to be born with. It CAN be improved though. As with many things, practice takes perfect. A good mental approach works too. There is no trick to improving your will-power, but if you can do small steps, you will eventually be able to better resist urges.
It's almost the new year. Time to pick a resolution we can stick to. If it doesn't work out, there's always next year.
