How to give your New Year’s Resolutions a life beyond January

As we turn the page of a new calendar and get use to writing ‘2023’ in place of ‘2022’ the New Year is also a time when we welcome a ‘fresh start’ in different areas of our lives, and typically set New Year’s Resolutions.

The year ahead feels like a blank canvas. What will it hold?

Now is the time when we are most open to setting big goals and inviting in more possibility in our lives.

But…

There is a high chance those New Year’s Resolutions will be short lived!

They’re notorious for it. Some are lucky to last beyond January.

There is a statistic around it, but I’m enjoying holiday mode too much to research it.

So I’ll cut to the chase and share 3 tips that might help give your New Year’s Resolutions a life beyond January…

1) Give them Purpose

A goal grounded in a deep sense of purpose - i.e. a reason you want to get after it in the first place, has a far higher chance of mattering to you enough that you’ll continue on with it, and do whatever it takes to get there.

So spend some time up front thinking about the ‘why’ of your goals, and what achieving them will mean. And keep coming back to it so you don’t lose sight of it.

2) Focus on their ‘Feel’

A wise friend, Belinda Morris, recently shared the notion that we set goals because of how achieving them makes us feel. So what if we focus on their ‘feel’ before the achievement comes? It can’t but help pull us towards our goals!

See if you can come up with an ‘I am…’ feeling affirmation for each goal, by answering the ‘What will you feel or know’ question when you achieve your goal. And just like the ‘goal purpose’, keep this ‘feeling focus’ top of mind too.

3) Don’t give up on them!

We start the year with such high expectations, as if overnight we’ve mastered the art of perfectionism. And then the moment we miss a beat or fall short of that ‘Resolution’ in some way - we give up on it! We dismiss it, as if it never really had a chance anyway.

Don’t let that ‘one beat’ be the entire beat. Allow yourself to drop the ball, and then get back on the horse! Keep feeding and fuelling your goal in some way - choosing actions that maintain the momentum. And don’t give up on it, until you’re really ready to.

Here’s a concluding thought… maybe each year we don’t need ‘new’ New Year’s Resolutions - we just need to get better at holding onto the ones we have?

Wishing you all the very best for the year ahead!

And I hope these tips help keep your New Year’s Resolutions / Goals on track.