Bring Your New Year’s Resolution to Life by Focusing on Habits

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As easy as it is to create New Year’s resolutions, following through can be challenging. In fact, according to Inside Out Mastery, 43% of people expect to fail at their resolutions before February, with almost one out of four people quitting within the first week of establishing their New Year’s resolutions. 

So what’s the trick to sticking to your New Year’s resolution?

The key is focusing on small habits rather than big overwhelming goals.

Here are three tips for how to do just that:

1) Break down your goal so that it has daily approachable steps

Habits are the building blocks of the larger goals you want to achieve. While it may sound overwhelming to say “I want to read one hundred books this year,” it’s more approachable to say, “I want to read 50 pages a day.” Or, broken down even smaller, “I want to read 25 pages in the morning and 25 at night.” Each of these statements is the same goal written differently.

If you did this over the course of a year, you would have read one hundred 200 page books.

2) Write it down

It can be tough to form a new habit. However, once you’ve broken down your goal into daily actions, you should then write it down using whatever system works best for you.

Whether you like digital calendars or paper planners, write down a daily reminder!

3) Use the 3 R’s

The 3 R’s, which stand for reminder, routine, and reward, can help you ensure that you’re progressing towards adopting your main goal and rewarding yourself throughout the journey.

Here’s a breakdown of the 3 R’s:

• Reminder: What can trigger you to take action with forming this habit? Is it a sign on your wall, a phone alarm, an object that’s hard to ignore or an accountability partner?

• Routine: What daily actions are you taking to establish this new habit?

• Reward: What benefits are you gaining from doing this action? Think about long term rewards as well as immediate. Write this down! Taking time to experience the pleasures that come from your new habit is the best way to get yourself to continue doing it.

There’s no doubt that forming new habits is tricky. But sometimes the first battle is actually getting a grasp over what you’re really trying to do and how that can come to life in your day-to-day existence.

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