Tips to keep it going:
How can we ensure that we maintain our good intentions? So set achievable goals and make a plan. But can we do more to stay motivated? Here are five tips:
Tell someone about your New Year’s resolutions
Don’t keep your good intentions to yourself. Although it can be scary to share your resolutions with someone – because what if you don’t achieve them – it is a good incentive. Moreover, the other person can help you achieve your goal by motivating you or by taking you into account.
Smart goals mainly ensure that you can measure the success of your goal. For example, don’t say: I want to be healthy and fit in 2024. Rather say: I want to walk for half an hour twice a week. Check every month to see how things went and whether you might want to go the extra mile.
You may want to change ten things about your life, but keep it simple. Changing a habit is hard enough if you do it one thing at a time. Trying to quit smoking, making more time for yourself, exercising and volunteering more, all at the same time is likely to cause you to become stressed and then drop everything. Choose the most important intention and focus on that.
Set a goal together with someone else
This works just like telling someone about your New Year’s resolution, but better. Working together towards a goal ensures that you can support, motivate and inspire each other. If you want to exercise more together, you can drag each other off the couch if necessary. Besides, you don’t want to be inferior to the other, do you?
Give yourself a reward when you have done well for a while. And not with a tasty donut if you’re trying to lose weight, or with a pair of new shoes if you want to spend less money on fashion. For example, choose to go to a movie or take a warm bath with luxurious bath salts. So reward yourself with something that does not get in the way of your resolution.