Happy first Monday of 2021! I’m pretty sure everyone’s starting on their New Year’s resolutions today and I did too! I wrote this blog post to provide you with some tips to help you stick with your goals for 2021, so you can rock them and aren’t afraid to create them! I honestly think New Year’s resolutions (NYR) get a bad wrap and some people avoid them all together because we often don’t stick with them. We look up and boom December is here and we’ve either not worked on a goal or worked on a goal and stopped prematurely. Either way, you shouldn’t feel bad if either scenario happens. It’s better to have goals in life than not have any. It’s better to start something and not finish than do nothing at all. 

How can you better stick to your goals? Below are my top suggestions for helping you better plan out your New Year’s resolutions so that you not only stick to them but also progress and accomplish them. Yes, the year has already started and January has already started, but it’s never too late to make some goals or perfect the goals you already have in your head or writing down. Do it. Even if you happen to be reading this in the middle of the year. 

Assign a specific timeframe and deadline to each goal.

Maybe you want to accomplish the goal by Q1 (end of March)? End of February? Think about how long it will take you to accomplish the goal, when you want to have the goal completed, and give yourself a rough deadline. There’s nothing like a deadline to kick yourself into full gear. There’s a reason when in school assignments are given due dates and exams are on specific days. One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made with NYR is not giving my goals specific timeframes and an end date. Having an end date in mind has helped me to focus in, prioritize which goals I want to work on and complete first, work on them progressively, and not prolong starting them.

Break down your big goals into mini goals.

Essentially, come up with checkpoints along the way so you can monitor your progress. For example, one of my goals this year, as it is every year, is to lose weight. I tend to be at my highest weight at the beginning of the year due to holiday weight gain and gaining pounds throughout the year. My weight loss goal this year is to reach a BMI (body mass index) of 30 by the end of April. Based on my current weight, I need to lose 15 pounds. So, my mini goal is to lose roughly 4 pounds a month for January, February, March, and April. Weight loss is one of those big goals that doesn’t happen overnight and for me happens slowly. These checkpoints will allow me to watch my progress monthly and change things up monthly as needed instead of waiting until April to evaluate and make changes.   

Reward yourself along the way at those mini goals.

This will help to keep you encouraged and motivated especially when working towards larger goals that may take months or even a year to accomplish. So continuing with my weight loss goal example, I plan to reward myself every month if I lose 4 pounds, which will keep me more excited and encouraged instead of only rewarding myself at the end of April. 

Make your goals SMART. Specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

If your goal is SMART, more than likely they’re more planned out and achievable. With my weight loss goal, I could have just generically said, “I want to lose weight”. Instead to make it SMART, my weight loss goal is: 

• Specific – I want to reach a BMI of 30 (lose 15 pounds).
• Measurable – I need to lose 15 pounds or 4 pounds a month to stay on track, which I plan to measure with my scale weekly and monthly. 
• Achievable – People on average lose 1-2 pounds a week, so losing 4 pounds in a month is definitely doable for me if I stick to eating right and exercising regularly. 
• Relevant – I personally feel better when my BMI is closer to 30, when I work out regularly, and my clothes fit better. Health and weight are important to me, so this goal is relevant for me. 
• Time-bound – My deadline for this goal is the end of April. 

Those are my top recommendations that I am also implementing with my 2021 New Year’s Resolutions. What are my other resolutions? I want to workout 45 minutes in the mornings twice a week in January, three times a week in February, and four times a week in March and the upcoming months. I also want to read weekly for personal enjoyment for at least 10 minutes on the same increasing progression (i.e. 2x a week in January, etc.) 

These tips truly force you to think more concretely and plan more realistically, which will help you to stick with your goals and reach them! If you already have your goals in mind, perhaps make them more specific and SMART if they aren’t already. 

Let’s rock this year! 

Margaret Nicole