My Guide to Kind-Of Keeping Up With Your New Years Resolutions

The truth is: we never finish our New Years Resolutions, much less start it. 

I won’t even start with a Happy New Years to everybody. 

Neither will I comment on how I have been in hibernation these past few months. 

We need to focus on one thing today and that is: we never finish our New Years Resolutions.

Okay, yes, there are some special people who can actually keep up with their resolutions but those people are a precious few. Back to McDonald’s in a few days. Giving up on your workout after the first day. Eating five cookies the second week. As humans, we are expected to fail on our New Years Resolutions. I think we’ve allowed ourselves to.

You can label me as a pessimist after you read that. I give you permission. But I don’t call myself a pessimist, I just see the truth with clearer glasses (that’s also because I’ve given up on New Years Resolutions and this New Years Resolution was to actually have a New Years Resolution). 

But (another but) you can always count on me to find a way to cut the hard stuff out and come up with an easier way to get the same outcome but with an easier process, and these are the thing I’ve come up with to feel the satisfaction of finishing your New Years Resolution while also having the satisfaction of your disappearing stress.

SHRINK YOUR LIST

Take it from this perspective: you have a list with 268 things on it compared to a list with 9 things on it but they both accomplish the same thing, what would you rather do? Take the shorter list obviously! I’d die if I ever saw a list of 268 things I need to do by the end of 2021. Even f you have to group ten things into one thing, DO IT! Your brain will hit the self combust button if it sees a long list of things it needs to accomplish. 

BE ABLE TO DO THEM. 

Well, that’s a bit obvious but what I mean is that you’re supposed to be able to do them fast and get a bit of satisfaction from them. Like if you have a “eat only vegetables for the whole month of January” combat it with a “make a batch of amazingly amazing cookies to eat”  on your list as well so once you check off one thing, you’re brain will relax a bit. It’s a mind trick but it works. 

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DON’T MAKE THEM EXCEEDINGLY HARD. 

As human beings, we don’t like doing hard things, and that’s the truth. And because of the expectations of a New Year that we pile on ourselves, we end up putting too much pressure on our minds and get crushed under it by Saturday. By moving one stone at a time you will be able to clear your path. So instead of putting “workout every day” on your list, put on “work our every Tuesday and Thursday” for the first few months, and then when you’re comfortable with it, you’ll start working out more.

HAVE A REWARD AT THE END.

As a kid, you may have only ever done a game at an event because it had a prize at the end. Or at least that was the case with me. I would always make sure there was a prize at the end of a game every time I played one at parties or events. At the end of your year, allow yourself to go off your eating plan for a bit. Eat a whole pizza. Take a rest from working out (you actually really do need rests in your week because your muscles and your mental strength need to recharge after everything). Eat a cookie. 

Okay, after all that, I need to pace myself 😉.