So how are those New Year’s resolutions going?: 10 tips to make consistent habits and reach your goals
Estimated time to read: 10-12 minutes
New Year’s resolutions are a bit of a hot-button topic. Some people love them and find the new year to be the kickstart they need. Others may feel discouraged because they’re reminded of all the past resolutions they’ve given up on in the past. Then there’s everyone in the middle who frankly might be too busy to care.
If you’re someone who set resolutions this year or who has been burned by resolutions in the past and wants to be able to set realistic goals, (or if it’s not even the New Year when you’re reading this but you want tips on habits and goals) this article is for you.
1) Break into monthly goals - don’t try to do it all at once
I can’t speak for everyone, but whenever I have tried to make New Year’s resolutions, I sit down and make a list of all the things I want to work on in the year. At the end of that brainstorming session, seeing the list of all the things I now feel like I have to do is really overwhelming. That feeling of overwhelm is enough to discourage many.
Just because you wrote it down doesn’t mean you have to do it. And it doesn’t mean you have to do it right now all at once.
We tend to have the most motivation for our resolutions in January when it’s the new year, but you have all year to work on it. To decrease the overwhelm, try breaking your list down into monthly goals. Pick one thing to start with and spend your month focused on that. Once you feel you’ve made some progress, you can move on to the next one. Plus, that’ll help increase your motivation because you’re feeling good about what you’ve accomplished.
2) Focus on consistency. It’s easy to get frustrated when you’re not seeing progress
Breaking your resolutions into monthly goals ties well into consistency.
It’s easy to set a resolution or a goal, spend a day or a week really focused on it, not see results, and then give up altogether. This happens with a lot of things in life. I’ve certainly done this myself and seen it in my clients when I teach a coping skill, they might try it once, and say it doesn’t work.
It takes time and consistency to do most things worth doing. It’s totally normal to get frustrated with a perceived lack of progress, but try to remind yourself to focus on consistency, and progress will follow. A lot of it comes back to the mindset around the behavior rather than the behavior itself.
3) SMART goals - how will you know when you’ve reached your goal? What is the endpoint?
On the note of progress and consistency, how do you know what progress is? What is your start point and end point?
A lot of times when we create goals, we aren’t phrasing them in a way that actually gives us a chance to achieve them. We say things like “I want to be healthier,” or people will come to therapy and say “I want to feel better.” But what does that really mean? Make your goals as concrete and defined as possible. If you want to expand, you can always make another goal.
SMART goals are a great way to structure goal-setting. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Specific - what exactly are you working on? If your broader goal is that you want to be healthier, do you want to walk for 30 minutes a day? Do you want to journal for 10 minutes a day, 3 days a week? You might have a lot of ways to define your goal, but pick one and be specific.
Measurable - how will you measure your goal? How do you define progress? Is it the number of minutes? The number of times a week? The act of completing the goal or how you feel when you complete it? I think measurement is where a lot of people get stuck. I see this a lot in therapy when people “want to feel better” but don’t know how to measure their progress. I’m a numbers person, so I like rating scales (1-10, 1-5) and time measurements. Numbers aren’t for everyone though. You can use a color scale (red, yellow, green) or write down your mood at the end of the day. Whatever your goal is, think about how you can measure it.
Attainable - is your goal doable? A lot of the time we have big aspirations, and it’s great to dream and look towards the future, but that’s not this stage of goal setting. This stage is about actually completing what you say you want to do, so it needs to be doable or attainable. If you set a goal that is too far out of reach (for now - that’s not to say you can never do it) you will feel discouraged when you can’t complete it and might give up. If you’ve ever attempted one of those couch to 5k programs, they start you off small and build you up to the attainable goal of a 5k. It’s not realistic to go from couch potato to Olympic runner as one goal.
Relevant - this one is probably the most self-explanatory (and therefore also kind of the most confusing). Pick a goal that is relevant to you and your life. As an example, if your goal is to get better at saving money, focusing on buying more plants would be irrelevant. Stay focused on what would be helpful to your life and keep a narrow focus on that.
Time-bound - set a time limit for yourself. If my goal is to work on expanding my marketable career skills (which, as a psychologist, could include completing Continuing Education credits), my goal might be to complete 1 Continuing Education credit a month until September (since that’s when psychologists in the state of Wisconsin renew their licenses). I gave myself a monthly time limit (1 credit a month) and I set a deadline of when I need to complete this goal by (September).
4) Break it into smaller goals
Using the SMART framework, we might look at a bigger goal and focus on breaking it into smaller, more attainable sub-goals that will add up to completing the overall goal. If I want to learn a new language, I might break that down into smaller goals of buying a grammar book and practicing for 30 minutes a day from the book. One grammar book won’t make you fluent, but it’s a smaller sub-goal to start until you graduate to the next sub-goal of taking a language class, for example.
5) Pick one thing a day
On the note of breaking things into smaller, more doable goals, try to focus on 1 thing a day. You likely have way more going on than one thing in a day, but when it comes to your goal and trying to not get overwhelmed, pick 1 thing per day to focus on that will help you reach your goal. When I was trying to start reading more for fun a few years ago, I focused on reading at least one page a day before bed. One page a day doesn’t sound like much of anything, which is why it was a good goal to focus on because I felt it was very doable and I often exceeded the goal, which reinforced my behavior. Now I read an average of 70 pages a day! Pick one thing that’s doable and focus on getting consistent with that before you expand on your goals.
6) Behavior chaining - link to something you already do
One thing that helps a lot with actually completing your one thing a day is to link it to another behavior you already do. Whenever I teach a therapy skill or assign therapy homework, I encourage people to do it when they do something they already do. Hopefully, you’re brushing your teeth twice a day, so linking your goal behavior to teeth brushing will help you remember to complete it. If you have a goal of journaling to reflect on your day, you can journal right after work, using the end of the work day as a reminder to yourself to complete the goal (alarms and reminders on your phone help a lot with this too).
A side note to this: an object in motion stays in motion. A lot of times we come home from work and want to relax, but we end up on the sofa and then don’t move for the rest of the night. Capitalize on the energy you have when you have it. You might really need to rest in order to get the energy to do your goal behavior, but be mindful of not falling into the trap of the sofa.
7) Eat the frog
When trying to maximize the energy you have to complete your goal, think about when you have the most energy to complete a task. There’s a saying in the productivity world, “Eat the frog.” The idea is to do the biggest and most difficult task first in your day. That will probably take the most energy, so you’re essentially giving yourself the whole day to get the most important thing done. Then anything you do after that is downhill and easier to do with less energy. (But, you know yourself best so this might not be the best approach for you. I’m personally an afternoon/night person, so I prefer to do my most thought-intensive work from 1-5pm.)
8) Tie it back to your values. What’s your why?
With anything that’s challenging in life, it’s hard to do it in a vacuum. You might feel motivated for a little bit, but motivation fades. Remind yourself of your “why.” Why is this goal important or valuable to you? What will it bring to your life? What will your life look like if you don’t complete this goal? Tying things back to your values can help you renew your motivation when it starts fading.
9) Reward yourself
Give yourself things to look forward to! I had a math teacher who said she would scatter chocolate chips on her textbook pages in college to reward herself for doing the reading (eating the chocolate chip only once she got to that paragraph). While that specific example might not make the most sense for you, find ways to reward yourself for being consistent and reaching your subgoals. Rewards are a form of reinforcement and they work well!
10) Accountability
Sometimes even with reminding yourself of your “why” and trying to bribe yourself with rewards, it can still be hard to get the thing done. Some people benefit well from having an accountability buddy. This might look like going to the gym with someone, calling someone when you complete your identified task, or quietly being on the phone with someone while doing your work. Sometimes people like to have 1 specific, identified “buddy” and sometimes simply being in a public setting, like a coffee shop can give the feeling of accountability. (Therapy is a great space for this too!)
Bonus - be gentle with yourself. The start of a new year is a tough time of year for many so it’s a hard time to start something new. Just because it’s the new year doesn’t mean you have to start your goals now. You can start whenever.
Life still happens. The start of a new year doesn’t stop the stressors from last year from coming back. Be gentle with your expectations of yourself and adjust your goals as needed.
Summary:
Break goals into monthly steps to avoid feeling overwhelmed
Consistency matters more than results - progress takes time
Use SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound)
Link new habits to existing ones to improve follow-through
Reward yourself and find accountability to stay motivated
Be kind to yourself - progress isn’t linear, and you can start at any time!
Disclaimer:
The content on this blog is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy or medical advice. For personalized care, please consult a licensed therapist or healthcare provider. For more details, please read our full Blog Disclaimer.
