How to Make your Resolutions Stick this New Year
The habit of making resolutions at the beginning of every New Year was started by the Babylonians who would make promises to their gods at the beginning of the year. If one owed a neighbor some money or had borrowed a family member some jewelry but was yet to return it, they would make the resolve to pay the debts. The gods would then bless them if they kept their promises, and punished them if they did not. Millennia later, debts in money or objects don’t worry human beings as much. Our most common New Year resolutions are to do with losing weight, quitting smoking and saving money. However, a majority of us don’t keep these promises we make to ourselves.
Research shows that only about 8% of Americans stick to their resolutions. Some of the goals that you pen down and aspire to achieve are great for you; they may make you rich or famous, improve your relationships and help you see the world. But more often than not, you don’t stick with them. Why is that? And how can you power through the ones that you make at this start of a new decade? Before we continue this video, I would like to say thank you so much to Babble for sponsoring this video. The size of the goals you set is a big determinant of whether you achieve it or not. You have heard it said before; “Dream big,and Aim for the stars, you might just land on the moon. If you’re lucky” And in line with such proclamations, we aim big; for example, this year you by resolving to reading a book a week, even though for the last six years, you have only read five books. Or maybe this this year, you could set learning a new language as a potential new goal. Let’s talk about this for a moment. Let’s say this year, you plan on finally visiting that exotic country you’ve always wanted to visited. Maybe this place could be Paris, Rome, Barcelona or maybe Moscow. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could be speak the indigenous language of these places. Learning a new language is a tedious affair,one which usually requires years of study and practice, making it difficult to quickly get into conversations, most people end up finding themselves a little lost in translation.
Fortunately, there is an App that can help you using a new language in real-life situations after only five hours of practice. This App is called Babbel’. ‘Babbel is the number 1 language learning app in the world, currently offering 14 different languages to learn. The belief that language-learning should start at real-life conversations is what makes Babbel stand out amongest its competitors. Its lessons will teach you vocabulary and grammar skills that you can actually use in practical situations; asking for directions,ordering at a restaurant, or speaking to locals. Babbel’s bite-sized lessons; 10 -15 min.enable you to easily fit language learning into your schedule. While many language-learning programs have you review the content periodically, Babbel adapts to your strengths and areas you need to improve by providing a review manager that makes sure you really retain what you learn. Babbel offers a mix of teaching strategies to help address your individual learning type. When you learn with Babbel, you can choose from a wide range of topics (like business, food,travel, and more) that are useful in real-life situations. Start learning a new language today with Babbel! Sign up for a three-month subscription and get three additional months for free! Link in the description. Audacious goals are good and can be a source of inspiration for you because of the appeal of the end goal. However, you should not forget that a big goal requires a big step for it to be achieved. For you to lose 20 pounds you should pay the price equivalent to the 20 pounds, be it through dieting or some form of exercising. When the big dream you have is not broken down to small achievable steps, you become overwhelmed. This is because it is all reduced to a single step that you have to take, one your brain is not entirely cool with. It the equivalent of tasking a 2-year old with carrying a 50kg bag of cement; how loud do you think they will cry? This same task can be completed – or rather,there is the possibility of completion – if a 15-year old was given the job. Their size relative to the task is not insane.
Ask yourself, what is the smallest step that you can take to reach your end goal? Make it easy for you to get and stay on track. If the goal is a 2-hour half-marathon, start with a 10-minute daily walk. Once you take that small step and complete it, you feel good. This positive feedback goes back into encouraging you to take another step. You make a few steps every day in your a-thousand-mile journey. You should also know that having too many resolutions may hinder your ability to stick to them. For example, you may be concerned about your weight, your studies, your smoking habit and your money habits all at the same time. Bold resolutions that are clearly defined and broken down to easy steps may work. But, the truth is, you will face problem sand fail several times. What happens when you are experiencing difficulty sticking to all four of your major resolutions? So, just pick one thing, to begin with. You could start by easing yourself into a habit of healthy eating for a period. When you have solidified this new habit, start something else. Taking yourself slow like this helps you enjoy the process and increase your motivation; because after you deal with an issue as big as your smoking, studying for a few hours for five days a week – your other goal – will not be so intimidating. After settling on a resolution and figuring out the smallest steps you can take to achieve it, the next step is to plan for achieving it. Planning, in this case, involves setting time in your schedule and availing the resources that are needed. For you to go to the gym every day, you need a membership at your closest one, exercise gear like yoga pants and shoes, and time to work out. Resources are an especially important part of sticking to your resolutions.
If you go to the gym and get blisters because of inappropriate shoes, you will less likely be encouraged to do it again. This will be the excuse that you rely on. Search the internet among other people who have lost as much weight as you wish to do, or achieved the same thing you are setting out to. What did they do? What made the process easier? When the theory all checks out, it is time to work on your resolution. Set a date on which you will start, and this doesn’t necessarily have to be at the very start of the year. It also doesn’t have to be on a Monday or when you meet the love of your life. Find a day that works for you or work to achieve the mental state that will leverage most of your motivation. For sure, you could start your a-book-a-week goal on the first day of January, read 50 pages on your first go, and commit to doing this every day of that first week until you finish the 374-page book. But if you attended a crazy party on New Year’s Eve – the kind that takes a whole week to recuperate from – what good does the date you set do for you? What happens to your motivation when you don’t start on this first week as you have solidly planned? And this brings us to a vital part of sticking to your New Year’s resolutions; the ability to forgive yourself when you make mistakes. Problems are bound to come up, and before you start working on your resolution, you should plan for how to deal with the ones that will most likely happen. However, you cannot predict every problem.
It will feel bad when you fail, and you may become doubtful of your ability to pull off what you have believed to be possible. Being down sometimes is part of life, and it might seem like everyone else but you around is achieving what they set. They aren’t your problem; you are. Learn when you are down and get up. Pick the lesson, make adjustments and try again. It may be unfortunate that you got blisters on the first day of your healthy habit; but what does it teach you? Well, that Vans are great for street wear,but not so much on the track. Tracking your progress, especially the really small achievements, maybe the hack to your motivation. They show you where you were and where you are heading, and to record progress, you may have to change the metric you use. In two weeks, you may be unable to figure out the number of pounds you have lost after doing 8 workout sessions that are 30 minutes long. And if you are looking at just the weight scale, it may seem like you aren’t making progress. But, in this time, you can observe that you as you climb the stairs to your apartment, you don’t heave on the landing of the second floor like before; it now takes three flights to tire you! It is these small achievements that you will fuel your motivation. Looking at your progress also shows you where you plateau off, and why this may be the case. You can then course-correct. And don’t forget, doing something small is always better than doing nothing at all. Sure, there are stars which, if they align,would mean a perfect situation for you.
The probability of them aligning is low though,and so, do you sit around and gamble? No. You should do something because taking a daily10-minute walk to lose 20 pounds is better than pining over the idea that if there was a gym close to you, you would be putting in at least 45 minutes of work out every day. In a nutshell, for you to stick to your resolutions,focus on one goal first. This goal should be clearly defined and broken down to the smallest step that can be taken to achieve it. Schedule it into your routine and avail yourself of all the resources that you will need to start working on it. Problems are bound to come and you will experience failure intermittently. If you can anticipate the former, make adjustments to deal with them and when you fall, pull yourself back up, dust off, look for the lesson and start right up. What are your New Year’s resolutions? Talk to us in the comment section below. Thank you guy’s so much for watching. And please check out Babble, Link in the description.
