Win at Your New Year Resolution (Even When You Mess Up)

New Year’s Resolutions are tough to stick to!

If you had a slip up on your New Year’s Resolution, don’t give up! These practical guide will help us get right back on track with our goals even if we already messed up.

1. Reflect on What Happened. Think about what went wrong and why you might have missed the mark. Consider the mistakes you made and any steps you should have taken differently. Write this down you will need it in case this tries to happen again you can now implement the different steps.

2. Learn from Your Mistakes. Pay close attention to the mistakes you made and try to figure out how you can avoid them in the future. Are you trying to read or workout at night but by the time the evening hits you feel too tired? Maybe switch the time. Do you feel fine but just don’t have a set time to do your goals and before you know it the day has passed and you haven’t had a chance to complete the task? Then set a specific time on the clock. Set an alarm and when it goes off, get to it.

3. Re-evaluate. Check and see with yourself if this is a goal still worth pursuing. Is it truly important to you? Or is it just something you feel you should be doing just because? If it truly is important to you and aligns with you values, try thinking of a why. Why do you want to do this? Dig deep until you have a meaningful reason that will help you to not quit.

4. Stay Positive. When faced with failure, it can be easy to lose motivation and become negative. It’s important to stay positive and remind yourself that failure is a part of growth and progress.

5. Make a Plan. After you’ve taken the time to reflect, it’s important to make a plan of action. Figure out what steps you need to take to achieve your goal and set clear objectives.

6. Take Action. It’s time to put your plan into action and make things happen. Remain focused and don’t get discouraged if things don’t go as planned right away.

7. Track the Habit. Making your goal into actionable habits that you can track is always a great idea. Say you want to read more this year, get super specific and be sure to quantify it (remember those S.M.A.R.T goals we spoke about last week). Once you have a number of books you wish to read throughout the year, you might decide to hit your goal you need to read 15 pages a day. That will be your habit! Track it in a calendar, page, or if you want my super fun affordable planner comes with a habit tracker and you can get them here or here. Once you begin tracking these habits you won’t want to break the chain and that will encourage you to keep going.

8. Celebrate Your Successes. Celebrate the successes, no matter how small they are. This will help you stay motivated and remind you of your progress. Select different milestones you wish to celebrate if it’s a long term habit. Going back to the reading example, celebrate once you read your first book, then 5, then 15 and so on and so forth. Celebrating makes things fun and releases the dopamine hormone causing your brain to want to continue doing the task. So always make sure to celebrate.

By sticking to these tips, you will be able to continue your resolutions or a goals all throughout the year. Even when you have a slip up. If you want even more tips on how to achieve any goal check out this video where I give some practical tips on how to do just that!