How to not quit your new year’s resolutions

For many people, the new year represents a new opportunity to start fresh again, with a clean slate and make this coming year a little better than the previous one. This often triggers a craze of goal setting and setting New Year resolutions, which I think is fantastic because it makes us a little bit more strategic and focused about what improvements we’re going to make in the coming year.

What usually happens is that people are very committed for the first couple of weeks when they are in a honeymoon period with the new goal. But the excitement, enthusiasm, and the commitment usually wear off after a few weeks.

Research shows that 80% of people quit their New Year’s resolutions by the beginning of January. 

80%!! That’s crazy!

There are usually three reasons why this happens.

I want to help you overcome these three problems if you have stumbled with with your goals and your commitment. I want to help you rekindle that passion, drive, determination and get back on track pursuing your goal because I’m sure that you do want the results, and I want them for you.

1. Rekindle your motivation

The first reason why people quit their New Year’s resolutions is because they lack motivation. Whether the motivation wasn’t there from the start or whether it just fizzled out, that doesn’t matter. If the motivation’s not strong enough, it will be tough to get yourself to do whatever you need to do.

Motivation comes from the reason WHY ( you want to achieve the goal).
Why did you set your goal?
Why do you want to pursue it?
Why do you want to accomplish that result?

People often forget why.

Here is how you can rekindle that fire of motivation.

Sit down with a pen and paper and write all the reasons why you set the goal in the first place. Take yourself back to the time when you set the goal and think about why did you want this? Why was it so important to you?

Then think about the future.
How will your life be different when you achieve the goal?
What will change about your emotions, about the way you feel?
What will it change about your environments?
What impact will it have on your personal life, your professional life, your finances, your relationships, friendships, your emotional wellbeing?

Write down all the reasons why or how it will positively impact your life.

The third set of questions is focused on the past.
Ask yourself, how was your life affected by you not having this result yet?
How did it impact your life in a negative way?
What pains have you experienced because of it?
How not having it affected your personal life, professional life, finances, relationships, friendships, your emotions and well-being?

In these exercises, you’re identifying and stacking the reasons WHY it’s so important to follow through and to accomplish this goal. 

2.Make it hard to quit

The second common reason why people quit too early their New Year’s resolutions is because quitting was simply too easy.

You see, a human mind is quite simple, particularly when it comes to choosing our actions. Your brain just doesn’t want you to feel uncomfortable. It creates tension.

So unless you deploy a lot of willpower, then your mind will naturally guide you to choose the option that is less uncomfortable.

If you quit your goal, then it probably wasn’t too difficult for you to quit.
For example, imagine you set a goal to quit coffee.
In the first scenario you don’t tell anybody about your goal.
Naturally, after a few days, you start feeling the withdrawal effect. Because no one knows about your commitment, it’s easy to give in and have your coffee which will make you feel better. You don’t feel great about it, but it’s not the end of the world.

In the second scenario imagine that you tell everyone you know that you’re quitting coffee and you give them permission to slap you or make fun of you if they see you having coffee. After a couple of weeks, you’re going through the withdrawal effect. And you start feeling uncomfortable. Maybe you’re getting headaches.

But now when thinking of quitting and having coffee, you know that many people would see that you are not honouring your commitment. Not only that you would feel uncomfortable, but maybe, you’d even get the slap (you asked for).

You see, in this case, you’ve made quitting much more uncomfortable. Now you don’t have to go to the extreme as I just described in this example. But there are always weighs how you can make quitting much more uncomfortable.

What could you do to make quitting really uncomfortable?

One of the great ways to do so is just public accountability. You share your goal with someone. Whether it’s a friend or a colleague at work, you can post about it on social media.

If your goal is a group activity, such as sports, a great way to stay more committed is to join classes or a community where other people will hold you accountable.

You can also increase your commitment by investing yourself in the goal. Whether financially or emotionally.

If your goal is in fitness, then get a personal trainer or sign up for classes.
If you want to learn a new skill, sign up for a course.

When you invest in your goal, you have more skin in the game and abandoning that goal would make you lose whatever you’ve invested in it. So always think about how can you put a little bit more skin in the game because that will make quitting definitely a little harder.

3.get help and get unstuck

The third reason why people often quit their new year resolutions is that they get stuck. They encounter some obstacles. Sometimes pursuing the goal becomes harder or you run into some logistical problem that you don’t know how to overcome, and so you stop or even quit.

My advice for you is to find a professional, or someone who is ahead of you, who can help you through these challenges.

Get a coach.
Whether it would be a life coach, business coach, mentor, personal trainer, zen master, whatever your goal is, get a coach or a mentor.

These people have most likely gone many, many times through what you’re going through and they will know strategies and techniques how you can resolve those issues that you may run into.

They will help you stay motivated and find solutions.
But most importantly, they will also hold you accountable.
A good coach won’t let you quit.

I honestly cannot stress that enough. I have got to where I’ve got because of all the coaching that I’ve received and accountability that it provided.

Having a coach in your life is one of the best things that you can do if you on a journey of becoming better.

Don’t quit your New Year’s resolutions.
Stay committed.

If you need the support of a life coach, you’re always welcome to contact me and let’s find out if we’d be the right match.