Setting a New Years Intention

It’s that time of year again - the motivation is at its highest with a fresh start on the horizon. If only we could bottle that feeling up and carry it with us throughout the year for when we were running low. You often hear people talking down on resolutions and how you shouldn’t wait for the New Year to start over - which is fair. If there’s something you want to chase, of course you don’t need to wait for the new year but reflection and dreaming for what’s to come is also a beautiful part of transitioning into the new year.

However, it’s no secret that it can be difficult to stick to resolutions for the entire year and come February most resolutions are thrown out the window. So, how do we set ourselves up for success and stick to our new years resolutions?

5 Tips for Sticking to New Year Resolutions

Regardless of what you set for yourself in 2023, here are a few tips to help stick with it and

Don’t Set Resolutions, Set Intentions:
What’s the difference between an intention and a resolution? Personally, I like to think of intentions as an overarching theme for your year. This is different than setting resolution because it’s not a specific action item that you’re looking to achieve and sort of takes the pressure off of new years resolutions. Intentions is more like a guidepost of what you want to focus on rather than a hard rule that needs to get done. When it comes to intentions you should still remind yourself of it often and keep it in mind throughout the year! Here are a few examples:
Examples of Intentions
- Protect my peace: This might look like saying no to obligations when you’re not feeling up to it, cutting out toxic people in your life, or putting yourself first more often
- Set boundaries: Not taking on extra projects at work that you can’t handle, setting firm guidelines with people in your life who tend to walk over you, or having a clear start and stop time during the day with your business
- Be Brave: Saying yes to more things that excite you but that might make you nervous or checking something off your bucket list
- Practice gratitude
- I will be more present in my day to day: putting down your phone more often and being present with those you love
  
  2. Stick to SMART Goals
  SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. This means setting a goal that will set you up for success from the get go. A goal of: “I’ll workout more” is extremely vague and by the end of the year you’ve probably forgotten all about it. On the flip side, something that is specific, realistic, and achievable is a much more productive way to set a goal. It’s also not realistic to go from living a sedentary life to working out 6 days per week, so don’t set out to fail! After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
  Some examples of SMART goals include: “I’ll walk for 30 minutes on Monday and Wednesday’s before work for the month of January” or “I will cook dinner for myself at least 2-3 times per week instead of eating out” or “I’ll save $300 from each paycheck and put it directly in my savings account”. Start with your big goal and break it down into a realistic bite sized piece that you can start with, then you can reassess as the year goes on.
  
  3. Write Your Goals Down
  A study from Dominican University in California showed that you are 42 percent more likely to achieve your goals just by writing them down. Better yet, write your goal on a piece of paper and tape it by your bathroom mirror or somewhere you will see it every day!
  
  4. Break the Year up into Bite-Sized Pieces
  Come December, it’s easy to forget about resolutions that you set for yourself back in January. Try breaking up your year into 4 quarters or have specific monthly resolutions that you set for yourself. That way you can reflect on what did/didn’t work at the end of each month and pivot if you need to. What’s also helpful is to break up each week with specific tasks to meet said goal or resolution.
  In a journal, write down Quarter 1 and your goal. Then break up the 3 months by week and write down tasks for each week that will help you reach the goal that you initially came up with!
  
  5. Know Your Why & Remind Yourself Often
  Lastly, it’s important to have a strong reason for why you want to implement something into your life or else your brain won’t really care and it’ll be easy to give up on when it comes down to it. You likely already have a reason behind why you want to implement your resolutions. The trick is to make it a compelling enough reason where if you’re too tired to get out of bed for your 6am wake up call you can remind yourself of your why. For instance, if your resolution was to become a morning person (SMART goal: I will start waking up a half hour before work each day) and you want to do it because some girl on Tiktok does it and it looks like a good idea…not a very compelling reason. On the other hand if you want to wake up an hour earlier to devote that hour to building your business for financial freedom, that’s a much more motivating ‘why’!

Share in the comments below what your new years resolutions and intentions are! My intention is to be more courageous and not let fear hold me back. And some resolutions include: drinking at least 60 oz of water per day, incorporating weight lifting 2 days per week and to save 20% of each paycheck I get and any additional income.

Wishing you all the best in 2023 and I’m always rooting for you ♥