Over 80 percent of New Year’s resolutions fail, according to a U.S. News Eat + Run post. So what do the successful resolution-makers know that the rest of the world doesn’t?
The fact is that there are right and wrong ways to make resolutions. Some types of resolutions fail, and some attitudes toward resolutions cause people to fail at keeping them. If you want to swim downstream with the majority and fail at the New Year’s resolutions you’ve made, here are seven ways to make sure that happens.
1. Be vague.
Setting a resolution such as “save more” or “get out of debt” is a guaranteed way to set yourself up for failure. Goals that aren’t clearly defined make it difficult to figure what steps to take to achieve them.
The solution: Be specific about the resolutions you set. Instead of saying “I want to save more,” make a resolution that says, “I want to save $500 by March 1.” By setting clear and specific goals, you can easier go about formulating a plan to achieve them.
2. Be unrealistic.
Setting a goal to pay off $50,000 of consumer debt in a year, when you only make $60,000 a year, likely isn’t going to work unless you have some seriously expensive stuff to sell. Although it’s important to challenge yourself when setting resolutions, it’s equally important not to make resolutions that have little chance of being met.
The solution:Set resolution goals that will challenge you without being too close to impossible. For instance, if you’ve been overweight and sedentary for the last 10 years and want to get in shape, don’t make a resolution to run a marathon by March; instead, make a realistic workout schedule that will challenge you but is still doable with your current schedule and based on your current health picture.
3. Keep your resolutions a secret.
Not telling anyone about your resolution is an easy way to let that resolution slip under the rug and stay there. When we’re only accountable to ourselves, it’s much easier to talk ourselves out of the steps that need to be taken to make those resolutions stick.
The solution:Find an accountability partner — or two — who you trust and will help you stay on track in a positive way. A good choice for an accountability partner is someone whom you’re comfortable sharing your successes and failures with and someone who won’t judge you too harshly but is comfortable enough to call you out when you’re not keeping up with your goals.
4. Refuse to write down your resolutions.
Written goals are achieved far more often than goals that aren’t written down. If you want to be sure to fail at your New Year’s resolutions this year, keep them in your head instead of on paper.
The solution:Write your resolutions down, and post them where you’ll see them every day. This might be on a poster board in the kitchen or on a piece of paper in your wallet. Just be sure to post resolutions in a place where you’ll be reminded of them at least once a day. By doing so, you increase your chance of keeping those resolutions exponentially.
5.Refuse to create a step-by-step plan.
If you’ve set your resolutions but haven’t made a detailed plan to go about achieving those resolutions, your chance of failure is high. Goals that don’t have accompanying written plans leave the resolution-maker with little idea how to proceed to accomplish those goals.
The solution:A resolution to lose weight succeeds more often with a detailed plan for working out and eating well. A resolution to dump debt succeeds more often with a detailed budget focusing on debt reduction. If you’re looking to succeed at your resolutions this year, create a realistic, step-by-step plan for achieving your goal — and stick to that plan.
6. Choose too many resolutions.
Making too many resolutions is another surefire way to fail at most — or all — of those resolutions. People often get excited at the prospect of a “new life” come January and decide to work on solving all their problems in one fell swoop.
The solution:Pick two to three resolutions that are most important to you and will have the biggest impact on your life right now, and work only on those goals. By keeping your resolutions list short, you’ll have more time and energy to devote to each resolution.
7. Choose to not persevere.
The biggest obstacle to achieving resolution success is the human tendency to simply give up. The going gets tough, and the majority of resolution-makers turn in their keys.
The solution:When working to achieve any goal, roadblocks and speed bumps will indeed appear. Successful resolution-makers overcome those roadblocks by simple perseverance — the daily choice to wake up and try again. If you’ve committed to persevere, you’ve committed to win at reaching your goals.
Instead of going with the flow, let this be the year that you buck the system and decide that you will set realistic resolutions and stick with the game plan you’ve made — all the way to the finish line. What a pleasant, well-earned victory that will be!
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7 Surefire Ways to Fail at Your New Year’s Resolutions originally appeared on usnews.com
