Unlocking the Secrets to Successful New Years Resolutions
That change in number at the end of the calendar date has a strange effect on us. It brings forth a sense of second-hand reinvention and recycled dreams that perhaps we didn’t achieve the year before. Every year it’s the same story: we dream, we plan, we even manifest, and yet we still find ourselves halfway through the year, sat in the same sweatpants, scrolling through Instagram – giving into that algorithm with Domino’s grease on our hands. What is it that brings us back to that same spot time and time again?
The reasons are different for all of us – maybe we’ve settled on an unachievable goal, or by February, we’ve lost the patience. Whatever the cause, the story ends the same way – and it’s time to change that ending.
That change in number at the end of the calendar date has a strange effect on us. It brings forth a sense of second-hand reinvention and recycled dreams that perhaps we didn’t achieve the year before.
It’s good to start with baby steps – don’t throw yourself into the deep end of achievement. Instead, start with small, attainable goals, which will motivate you to continue your streak of accomplishment. This principle this is based on is the dopamine reward system. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter responsible for the pleasure we feel when we receive a reward or when we complete a task. Therefore, if you keep achieving those smaller goals, you’ll have motivation to continue.
Contrary to what one might think, another way to make sure you achieve your goals is to know when to stop. There are 12 months in a year, which is 52 weeks, or 365 days (most of the time) for you to start hitting your targets. It is not a lot of time, and if you overshoot with your goals, you could end up pressured, disappointed, and demotivated when you can’t tick them all off. It’s better to pace yourself, and focus on little things rather than dive into too much too fast. A lot can happen in a year that might shake your journey up a little. The moral here: learn your limits.
Reflecting on past mistakes and looking for bad habits to break are also ways we move forward. Our lives are like those thousand-piece puzzles – you might not find the right piece on the first try. Once we can identify where we’ve gone wrong, we can fix it. If you find yourself around toxic energy that overshadows your growth, and you are constantly dimming your own light, then congratulations – you’ve just found a piece of the puzzle to remove.
Ridding yourself of that negative energy, and any source of it, allows you to identify the people that are really in your corner. The people who encourage you to dream and push you towards those goals are the people that you can trust and rely on, especially when you’re running low on motivation. Know your support system before you embark on treacherous journeys. Studies show a higher rate of success in achieving your goals when you’re not going about it on your own.
Life isn’t a race that begins on New Year’s Eve. Why wait for January 1st to start achieving your goals?
My last word of the wise: you can start over anytime. It doesn’t always feel that way, especially since the motivation for change often lies in the significance of an event. Life isn’t a race that begins on New Year’s Eve. Motivation will come and go, but when you truly want something, you commit to it- even if it’s halfway through the year. Why wait for January 1st to start achieving your goals?
Change is a difficult and sometimes painful process, and it doesn’t magically happen after 12 grapes or a midnight wish. It happens when you set small goals for yourself. It’s a knock-on effect – maybe you start eating healthier and sleeping better. Suddenly, you’re doing more things that make you happy without even noticing- all because you didn’t give up when things got hard. In the end, the best kind of change can be like a hug from behind – you don’t see it coming, but when it happens, you sink into it and smile.
