Happy New Year!
Like many of you, I have made some new years resolutions this year. Of course, I’ve started thinking about all my past new years resolutions, particularly the failed ones. This year, I’d like to keep at least one of my resolutions. We make them because they’re usually goals we would really like to accomplish: getting in shape, improving our posture, being friendlier, fighting with our parents less, eating more nutritious food, etc. The trouble with such resolutions is that they’re not quantitative; it’s hard to measure our progress, and it’s so easy to just forget about them. This year, after some research and some hard thinking,  and I’ve come up with a few tips on keeping those resolutions:

1) Get specific and write them down. If your goals are vague and unrecorded, you’re less likely to remember them six months from now. If you have them written down concisely and in a prominent spot, not only will you be reminded constantly, you’ll know exactly what you have to achieve. For example, instead of just thinking “get in shape,” find a piece of paper and write, “By the end of June 2011, be able to run 3 km without stopping,” and tape it to your bathroom mirror.

2) Make a daily checklist. I got this idea from The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. Her goal was to increase her happiness through various methods, or resolutions. (Like  keeping the house tidy, laughing more, sleeping enough, etc.) It was a good book and I really recommend it. However, one thing she found was that she was a lot more successful if she made up a “report card” for herself. She called it the “gold star” method, relating back to elementary when you got stickers for doing well. A lot of people respond to this reward-based method, and it really forces you to think about your goals everyday. Get a calender on your computer, type in your resolutions and put check boxes on every day, then print it. At the end of every day, check off the boxes you accomplished. For example, if you went on a run, check-off  “Do Something Active.”

3) Tell people. The more you are held accountable for your goals, the more likely you’ll get to them. If your parents and friends all know about your resolutions, you’ll feel like you have to do it or else you’ll embarrass yourself.

4) Team up. If your resolution is to eat more nutritious food, tell your family. Get everyone in on it. Your parents will buy more healthy groceries, and you can even ask them to help you learn to cook more nutritious meals and snacks instead of KD or microwave popcorn. Get your friends to do it too, and maybe you can all start eating at Subway instead of McDonalds.

5) Have an incentive and keep that in mind. For example, my parents want to get in shape for our trip to Brazil this year, and so whenever an opportunity to exercise comes up, they talk about Brazil and it motivates them. Or you can promise yourself an entirely unrelated reward, like a shopping spree next boxing day if you keep your room clean all year.

6) Stick to it. Even if you’re unsuccessful for the fist six months, different opportunities may present themselves later. Maybe your goal is to get in shape, but you don’t do much for the first few months of 2011. Then in the summer, you’re offered a job in construction that involves a lot of physical labour. So instead of taking that job at McDonalds you were considering, you start working in construction. By the time September rolls around, you’re more physically fit than you could have hoped for. Just because you fail to keep your resolutions the first few days or weeks of 2011 does not mean they are impossible goals. Stick to it, and learn the satisfaction of keeping a new years resolution.

Good luck! May we all keep our resolutions and accomplish those goals.