31 Dec 2020

BY: admin

Counseling

How to Maintain Your New Year’s Resolution

Resolutions are a fun New Year’s tradition, but they can also cause a lot of pressure and disappointment. The top resolutions each year are focused on wellness, including exercising more, losing weight and eating a healthier diet. In 2019, a survey found that only 7 percent of people stuck to their original resolutions while 19 percent managed to fulfill some but not all of their plans.

To give yourself the best headstart to 2021, here are a few therapist-approved tips to making and sticking to good New Year’s resolutions.

Tell Your Therapist

Your therapist helps you stay accountable and make meaningful changes in your life. As you prepare to embark on a new year, voicing your desires and plans to your therapist can help shape the course of your time together. They can help you recognize reasons these resolutions are important to you which serve as motivation when times are though. They can also help you come up with action plans to stay on track and make short-term, fulfilling goals that gradually become good habits.

Choose One Meaningful Change

Rather than burdening yourself with a long list of resolutions, pick one that you are truly passionate about and most likely to achieve. When you start to reshape one aspect of your life, others tend to follow suit. If your resolution is to work out more, for example, then you will find that it can also help you be more social and self-disciplined.

If you aren’t sure which resolution to choose, use a journal to write down the pros and cons of each. What is your main reason for pursuing each one, and what are some steps you could immediately take to start fulfilling them?

Avoid Being Ambiguous

Saying you want to “lose weight” or “eat better” sounds wonderful but can be hard to put into practice. If your overall resolution is too broad, find a way to break it into more concrete goals. Someone who wants to use social media less, for example, might decide to not use the internet an hour before bed rather than avoiding it entirely.

Plan Ahead

Waiting until the last minute to declare your resolution can make it harder to follow through with it on January 1st. Avoid putting pressure on yourself to transform right away; instead, develop a plan that lasts the whole year and gives you plenty of room to grow and learn from any setbacks.

Smaller steps lead to the most lasting changes; a successful resolution strategy has a clear end-goal supported by smaller, actionable steps. By getting a headstart on planning, you also have time to come up with potential solutions to any obstacles that you might face.

Have you tried to carry out New Year’s resolutions in the past but struggled to stay consistent? A therapist can help you set goals that work for you and bring you a sense of achievement and inspiration instead of stress and anxiety. Contact Caring Heart Counseling to learn more about our services or request an appointment.