This post is not for everyone but for those of you who each year you set a New Year resolution and by Feb you have already given up. You may truly want to get healthy whether it be working out more or trying to get your blood pressure down or whatever it may be. Yet each year you start off by saying something like it’s 2023 and I’m about to be a new me. You are excited and you start off good but yet here comes February and things have happen in your life and next thing you know that resolution has been pushed to the back burner. Why is that?

1. You are not serious  about the New Year resolution

Most people do not take New Year resolutions seriously. We see it as something that is done every year but who sticks to it.  How many people do you know including yourself that set these goals just because? Everyone in your family or your friend group have gotten together and decided to set a New Year resolution. So you just go through the motions and say you have one. Yes you may actual want to achieve what you say as your resolution but you haven’t even thought about it in enough detail to make sure you take the necessary steps to achieve it. So it is easy for you to give up on it early on.

2. You choose something you are not ready/motivated to change.

Your doctor told you your cholesterol is high and you should cut back on fried foods and saturated fat. So you say I eat fried chicken and I will cut that out.  You choose this even though every Thursday you go to the fried chicken shack and every Sunday you go to Big Mama’s house for dinner and she makes her famous fried chicken. You give up fried chicken for a few weeks and then you’re back to eating it again. You may feel as if you failed but this was not a good resolution for you because you did not have personal motivation to change this. The doctor told you to cut back on fried foods and you choose the easy thing to think of but it was not something you were ready to get rid of. Instead you could have look at other areas of your diet and lifestyle that you are willing adjust to help you improve your cholesterol like eating more fruits and vegetables, exercising more or cutting back on red meat and keep the food that brings you joy while working on improving your cholesterol number.

3. You have established a pattern of not following through.

Have you told yourself that you are failure and you are never able to achieve a goal? Well you are not a failure. You can achieve your goal you just have to break the cycle. The cycle was started because year after year you set resolutions or you put together a vision board or you have your theme for the year. And year after year you don’t follow through with any of it. You’ve told yourself that it is okay and it’s always next week, month or year. And that is true but because of this pattern you find yourself in a cycle and constantly pushing your health goals out. Or you always find that there is something more important than doing what you have made as your resolution. You feel like you are too busy and you say things like between work, my kids, family, and trying to have a social life I don’t have the time. So because you can justify not following through there is no point of you setting a resolutions. You need to get back on track by doing something simple that you can actually meet. If your goal is to work out more don’t say something like I’m work out every day because you are setting yourself up to fall back into that cycle. Instead set a very achievable goal to help you get back you break the cycle. For example, schedule exercise 3 times a month for at least 30 minutes. This is achievable and it gives you enough grace and time that if something does come up you are still able to meet it. Once you complete this for at least 3 months and start feeling better about yourself. Than you can increase how often you exercise slowly making achievable goals and write out a plan to help you achieve it. Which brings us to the last point.

4. You have not made an appropriate plan to meet the resolution.

Whether it be a New Year resolution or any type of life goal. If you just set a goal and don’t make a plan to achieve that goal you are more than likely not going to achieve it. I will stick with the theme of working out as my example since exercise tends to be a popular resolution year after year. So your goal is to work out more. If that is all you say that’s more of a statement and not a goal. Even if you say I would like to work out 3 times per week, this is more of a goal but it’s a goal without a way of achieving it. How many times do we say something is a goal but we never follow through because we have not put a plan in place? So this is why resolutions don’t work because they don’t require you to think any further than a simple statement. So if you really have the goal of working out more for the New Year, you need to make it measurable.  Then you need to think about how you are going to achieve that goal. This includes the time you going to work out, days of the week you are going to work out. If you have kids who is going to watch them. Are you going to get a gym membership or walk around the track at your local park or utilize free YouTube videos? Are you going to have an accountability partner or are you going to track the days you exercise in a journal or both? You may be saying this is a lot and maybe you are the type of person that says I’m going to do XYZ and you do it but most people are not like that so set a measurable goal and make a plan. Example below:

Goal: to work out 3x per week

Secondary goal: get up to 3 miles walking on the track and complete the cycling class without stopping.

Plan: Workout on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays because I’m not as busy on those day. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I will go to the park after work and walk the track and kids can run around and play. On Saturday I will go to the cycling class at the local gym and my spouse will watch the kids. I will get an exercise journal and document every time I exercise.

Challenges that may prevent you from reaching your goal: Kids getting sick, having to work later than expected, or an event that comes up on the weekend.

How are you going to get around the challenges? Work out at home watching a YouTube video later that day or work out the next day. If not able to do either will give myself grace and get back on track my next scheduled work out day.

I hopes this helps you not feel the pressure of setting a New Year resolution and if you make resolutions set a plan to go along with it so that you are successful. But no matter what you choose I hope you have a great and thriving year!