5 Ways to stick to your new year’s health resolutions
Many people make New Year’s resolutions to become fitter, but it’s not always easy to stick to your goals. Read more for our tips on how to make them stick.
Tips & advice about New Year resolutions
Many people make New Year’s resolutions to become fitter and healthier, but it’s not always easy to stick to your goals. And according to one survey, carried out by a social network called Strava, many people give up on their resolutions altogether as early as the second Friday in January.
Resolutions that require willpower are seldom easy, and we often set ourselves up for failure before we’ve started by taking on too many.
Thankfully lots of experts have practical advice to help you set up and keep focused on your goals.
Here are five top tips you may find useful from John Dicey, global CEO of the stop-smoking method Allen Carr’s Easyway:
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Make only one resolution, two at most
Sometimes we’re so determined for a fresh start in the New Year we end up biting off far more than we can chew. Packing in smoking, quitting drinking, going to the gym every day, going on a diet, putting away some savings, spending less time watching TV or gaming all seem like good ideas at the time – but try to handle them all in January and they’ll falling by the wayside faster than the needles on your dried out Christmas tree.
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Whatever your New Year’s resolution is – write it down
Highlight the massive advantages that success will bring. Explore every angle of success and make a note of it. Whatever your resolution is – if it’s worth achieving – you should have at least four or five bullet points that won’t fail to make you smile.
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Think about the positives
Rather than starting off with a feeling of doom and gloom, focus on those upsides that you’ve written down and enjoy them from the moment you embark on your resolution. Don’t wait until you start noticing them. If you won a holiday of a lifetime – but had to wait until May before you went away on it – you wouldn’t wait until May to start feeling good about it would you? Of course not. Enjoy your new life, right from the start.
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Do it for yourself
It’s tempting to decide to quit smoking, lose weight, or cut down on your drinking for the sake of your partner or of your kids. Don’t do it. An argument with them or a rough day of kids or your partner squabbling, and that motivation becomes a little less strong as the temptation to cave in and declare ‘Now look what you’ve made me do’ as you light up a cigarette or rip open a box of Milk Tray. Make your resolution for yourself for one simple reason; that you’ll enjoy your year so much more as a result of sticking with it.
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Remember, it’s not all or bust
If you end up falling down, eating those apparently irresistible cookies that someone left out, or missing your trip to the gym after a hard day at work, don’t beat yourself up. You haven’t committed a crime, you just slipped up, that’s all. Pick yourself up, brush yourself off, focus on your highlights list and feel good about yourself.
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Read more about Stopping Smoking
