It’s never too late to make a New Year’s resolution: 5 expert tips for achieving your goals

Everyone has goals, and the new year is a time to re-evaluate how you go about achieving your goals. However, some people give up or reconsider their goals even before the end of January. There’s even a name for the second Friday of every January: Departures Day. This year, it’s January 10th.

If you’re about to give up, or have already done so, don’t worry. Contrary to some depressing headlines, sticking to your resolutions and achieving your goals isn’t impossible or even unlikely—and you can Start over at any time. But as a general rule, viewing your desires as “goals” may be more helpful than “resolutions,” says Candace Setty, a psychologist, personal trainer, and nutrition coach. This is because humans tend to achieve goals well, as long as you have the right approach and set them for the right reasons.

“It’s very important to approach New Year’s resolutions through the same lens that we approach goal setting,” Siti said.

Achieving goals is not only fun, but they are essential to what keeps us going in life. So whether a Fitness goalset a new health standard or achieve the next milestone in your creative passion, here’s what Setty and other experts say about working with your psychology to achieve a New Year’s resolution.

1. Find the deeper reason for your goal

Just like the main character in the movie, you need to find “what you want” for the solution to be effective. City calls this “revisiting the causes.” Why do you want to lose weight? Why do you want to eat healthier? (As a spoiler alert, it’s never about weight, and it’s never about food.)

“Weight loss is not the goal,” Siti said. “Weight loss is the means to reach the goal.”

To clarify your goal of losing X number of pounds, for example, explore the reasons why you want to. Do you think you will feel better? Do you think it will make you feel more energetic? Will you smile more when you have more energy?

What about the reasons you quit drinking?

If you’re having trouble finding the deeper why behind your purpose, Flynn Skidmore, therapist and life coach, devotes much of his online content to teaching people strategies for understanding why they really want what they do. He explains some reasons to get to the bottom of the matter in December episode From his podcast, The Flynn Skidmore Podcast.

“There are layers to it,” Skidmore said on his podcast. “And when you only see the surface layers of what it means to have a desire or want something, life becomes very confusing.”

As you go through this mental checklist and find the true value of your goal, you may get an energizing push to pick up where you left off. Instead, by defining what your goal will achieve truly Do it for yourself, you might know you’ve set the wrong New Year’s resolution. If that’s the case, no big deal. Just go back to the drawing board with the approach that works for you.

2. If you have already “sinned”, just start over

Yes, it’s really that simple. People may choose to start a new calendar year to gather momentum for a solution, but if it’s important to you, there’s no reason to stop just because you momentarily fell off the wagon. This may be especially true when it comes to health goals. If your goal is to eat more nutritious foods so you have a better chance of living a longer life with a lower risk of disease, why would you sink all year just because you ate a little cake or didn’t eat vegetables one day? If you lead with an “all or nothing” attitude, you are more likely to give up. This is more likely to happen if our goals are not specific enough or are too extreme.

“We can do it for a few weeks, but then it gets too stressful and we don’t hit what we’re trying to hit, so we go into all-or-nothing mode and say ‘stop.’ City said.

The best way to avoid 100 or 0 and reach 80-20 instead is to reframe your goal and break it down into smaller parts. Those are the third and fourth steps.

3. “Approach” instead of “avoid”

Research published in 2019 in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine found this The way you set the goal itself It plays a role in achieving this, at least when it comes to health goals. Specifically, goals that “approach” rather than goals that “avoid” a particular behavior were associated with more positive emotions and a greater sense of psychological well-being.

An example of a healthy eating “approach” goal, for example, would be “I will eat more vegetables and nutritious foods this year.” The “avoid” version of the same goal would be “I will cut out candy this year.”

That’s why restriction-based diets are less effective than diets that add healthy foods, rather than restrict “bad” foods, according to Citi.

“When we restrict, we make the thing we are restricting the strongest thing in the universe,” she explained. By reframing your purpose, you may tip the balance of power in your favor.

4. Take small, regular steps towards your big goal

What this will look like will depend on your decision: is it about work or a creative project, about fitness and health or something else?

If you have a big project you’re working on, for example, practice waking up early every morning before you start your regular workday to accommodate your creative passion. Or if you can’t Miss any sleepFind another small period of the day that you can dedicate to working on it.

For fitness or nutrition goals, what is considered a “small task” will be more tailored to your specific wellness plan. But for example, if your goal is to become fitter, small “Exercise snacks“It’s easy to press, and… Find small, sensible ways to stay active Regularly is an achievement in itself.

By checking off small accomplishments—eating two servings of vegetables one day, drawing for 20 minutes one day, writing for 10 minutes one day, etc.—you’ll have something to look to as proof that you’re slowly working toward your goal.

“They allow us to build that confidence and ability to continue,” Siti said.

5. Look for like-minded communities

Surrounding yourself with people with similar goals or passions may motivate you and make you feel less lonely. Fortunately for us, one of the benefits of social media is that we live in an age of online communities and groups. For example, there Support groups alongside Alcoholics Anonymous For people who want to quit or reduce alcohol use.

There are also groups — like pottery, writing, bird watching, and more — that focus on activities that can be related to your big goal, and that can ultimately help you achieve it. To find one, you can start by doing a quick search for “online group for X” or “in-person group for X near me.”

Whatever you do, never stop examining the root of the solution or “connecting the dots.”

“A lot of times, when we achieve these goals, we connect the dots,” City said. “But when we do it, we don’t.”