How to Make Resolutions You Can Keep

Around this time every year, if I haven’t already, I start to think about what resolutions I’d like to make for the next year. I’m a very goal-oriented person, so I really like the concept of resolutions and love to take advantage of this time of year to make some goals for the year ahead. Though I typically don’t keep all the resolutions I make, I usually tackle a couple and love spending the year reaching my goals.

Here are some tips I’m going to use when making my resolutions this year…

How to make resolutions you can keep:

• Make your resolutions measurable – You can’t tell if you met your resolution if you can’t figure out what the success criteria is/are. Rather than saying, “I’d like to eat more vegetarian meals”, try saying, “I will eat at least one vegetarian meal a week.” “More” is very general, but you can tell if you’re eating one vegetarian meal per week or not.
• Make your resolutions reasonable – It’s nice to have big dreams, but if you are actually hoping to meet your resolution, make your goal something do-able. For example, If you know that your schedule is so busy, it often leaves you having to make short-cuts during the week to get food on the table, it’s probably not a good idea to make a resolution to cook a gourmet dinner every night of the year. I like to ease into things, so if it were me, and I didn’t make ANY gourmet meals, I’d shoot for once a week. Hey, if you excel more than you thought and cook a gourmet meal two or three times a week, you’ll feel like you really surpassed your expectations and did extra good this year!
• Be flexible – You may set your goals based on your current lifestyle, but if something out of your control happens, you have to be able to “roll with the punches.” You may need to revisit and revise your resolutions. If, for example, you vow to eat in every week night of the year, but your work sends you on a 6-month assignment in another city for 3 days out of the week in a hotel with no kitchen, you may have to pull a switcheroo and vow to eat in every weekend instead.
• Ask for help/support – It’s amazing how much your friends, family, and loved ones can help steer your ship when they know what direction you’re sailing. If, for example, you tell your SO and family that you’re trying to quite drinking soda, they may be more apt to not have it around when you visit or keep it in your home. They will know to not offer it to you (which they may if they know you like it) with dinner, etc.

Do you have any resolution-making tips to add?