Making Healthy Attainable New Year's Resolutions that will stick past Valentine's day

I hope you had a Merry Christmas with friends and family.

I wish you a healthy, prosperous, and purposeful 2022.

Let’s talk about New Year’s resolutions.

If you are planning on making some for 2022, what would they be for you? Will they make it past Valentine’s Day?

My late loving husband Ralph and I always wrote new year’s resolutions together at the end of the year or the first week of the new year in our own dedicated journals, just for that purpose.  He bought the 2 notebooks pictured below for us (mine was the one with the boy and the girl… how sweet was that?….).

We wrote our new year’s goals including personal physical, spiritual & financial, and we set goals for both of our businesses as well.

On the notebooks, we also wrote a summary of the blessings, accomplishments, failures, answered and unanswered prayers, etc. from the year that was ending.

We read together out loud all our notes starting the year we got married in 1998. That exercise made us be so grateful for the Lord’s hand in our lives. His protection, provision, guidance, and for all the answered prayers and in hindsight for the unanswered prayers. Many times, we said to each other, I had forgotten about that one…. Too many times and we remembered to be grateful.

Here we are on our honeymoon in December 1998.

 Here we are a few months before his passing.

I invite you to make some resolutions for 2022, if you don’t make them how can you measure your success toward goals that you have not set?

Let me give you some tips for making healthy, attainable New year’s resolutions that will stick. I will just give it away; the trick is to make the resolution a habit.

According to Dr. Caroline Leaf, it takes 21 days to rewire neural pathways plus another 42-days for a total of 63-days to firmly build new mindsets into our nonconscious level of mind which makes up 95% of our brain function. Once we passed the 63rd day, the behavior is part of what we do, it becomes a habit. 

What is or are some areas where we could make new years’ resolutions?

• Physical: transform your health (eat healthier, exercise consistently, get better sleep, improve values on your blood test?
• Spiritual: Grow spiritually (in which area do you still need to surrender to God’s control, start a daily journal?)
• Financial: Get your finances in order (know where you stand and get out of debt and or plan for retirement)
• Emotional: Get your emotions under control? (Get rid of toxic thoughts and renew your mind)
• Personal: personal growth in an area (skills you would like to learn, eliminate bad habits, etc.). Invest in yourself, invest in you, in your wellbeing?
• Family Goals: (a standing date night with the spouse, schedule time to call your mom or dad, plan on having one-to-one dates with your kids) 

Ask yourself:

What is it that you would like to achieve?

Why do you want to achieve it?

Can you practically accomplish it?

How long do you think it will take? 

How can you make the resolution a reality?

Set goals, make a detailed plan, and commit to being consistent

1. Write the goals down and be specific.

Divide it into steps and set timelines to achieve each step (SMART goals) so you can measure your progress easily.

It helps to ask yourself:

• What am I trying to accomplish with this goal?
• When do I want this goal to happen?
• Why do I desire to achieve this goal? 

2. Make goals measurable:

It helps to ask yourself:

• How long will it take me to reach the goal?
• How would I know when I’ve reached my goal?
• Create a timeline for accomplishing tasks necessary to achieve your goal.

3. Plan a strategy, a detailed plan, commit to do it, and be consistent.

Believe that you can do it and tell yourself that.

It helps to ask yourself.

• What do I need to do daily, monthly, and quarterly to reach my goal by the time I specified?
• Do I have a deadline for reaching my goal?
• Is this a one-time goal or do I need to reach it more than once and how often?

4.  If you miss achieving one of the steps in your timeline, do not be hard on yourself. Take a moment to think about what did and didn't work. Maybe you took on too big a challenge? If so, scale back to a less ambitious challenge, or break the big one into tinier steps.

It helps to ask yourself:

• What was I feeling when I missed that step?
• What were my thoughts behind the feeling? (What was I telling myself?)
• Was I being too unrealistic about the step?

5. Celebrate if you made any improvements toward your resolution or goal. Encourage yourself to keep at it by pausing to acknowledge success as you tick off small and big steps on the way to a goal.  Do not focus on perfection.

Even if you do not accomplish your goal or resolution 100%. Any activity is always better than none. If your goal for Tuesday is a 30-minute workout at the gym, but you only squeeze in 10 minutes, feel grateful for that. It's enough. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

So, what would it be for you this year?

• Weight loss?
• Kick an unhealthy habit?
• Spend more time with family and friends?
• Getting your finances in order?
• Read the Bible & pray daily?
• Work on reducing stress for your mental health.
• Travel more?
• Restore a strained relationship with a loved one?
• Learn a new skill or hobby?

Whatever your resolutions are, use the above tips and start the new year. I wish you success and if you need help setting up goals, I offer a FREE 45-minute Purpose-Inspired Living Breakthrough Session.

Click below to book an appointment

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