Five Fabulous Ways to Make... and Keep New Year's Resolutions

It’s been 11 days since New Year’s Eve, which means it has been 11 days since New Year’s resolutions were made… and then broken.

According to the University of Scranton (which is in Pennsylvania if your New Year’s resolution is improving at geography) just 8% of people keep their New Year’s resolutions. But why only 8%? What makes a New Year’s resolution so elusive? Psychology experts cite a number of reasons, such as making wish lists that are simply too long and setting unattainable goals.
In order to help you keep some of your New Year’s resolutions, we’ve researched some top tips when it comes to choosing goals and sticking to them.

1. Keep it Simple
Choose one thing that you would like to change. As tempting as it is to go into imagination-overload and create a 57-item list detailing all the changes you’d like to see in your life, you are only creating sky-high expectations for yourself that are so daunting you’ll quit before you even start.

So seriously, keep it simple.

2. Make it Tangible
It’s much easier to set a goal of “going to the gym more often” than to actually go to the gym. We know. But setting such a vague goal means you have no way to measure your progress, and five weeks later, you’ll be sitting watching Netflix, eating ice cream, and wondering what “more often” actually meant. So set a goal that is tangible and measurable. Promise yourself that you will go to the gym two times a week and stop eating ice cream for six weeks. The more specific the better.

3. Make it Obvious
Fulfilling your New Year’s Resolutions feel great, but tracking your progress over time is even better. Depending on how artsy you are, you can create anything from a simple checklist to an elaborate board (complete with sticky notes, motivational quotes, and charts) to chart your progress. Whether it’s losing weight, exercising more, or learning how to crochet, find a way to measure your progress.

4. Spread the Word
Once you’ve decided on a simple, tangible, and obvious goal, spread the word. Whether you phone a friend or share a picture on social media, there’s something about telling someone else that hold yourself accountable. Plus, maybe you’ll find that someone has the same goal as you!

5. Be Patient
Rome wasn’t built in a day. It takes time to make changes, and although it can be frustrating when you don’t see progress immediately, so be patient with yourself as you work towards your goals.

And those are the five fabulous tips we’ve found to help you keep your New Year’s resolutions!

Ptownlife Goals

On a personal level, we’ve got some of our own goals here at Ptownlife. We create a weekly newsletter that currently goes out to 11,800 people, and we’ve set a goal to raise that number by 1,000 subscribers. To do that, we plan to post 1 social media message a week to promote our newsletter. Now let’s see if our goal hits all five categories. It’s simple, tangible, there’s an obvious way to check our progress, we’ve spread the word on our website, and we promise to be patient with ourselves.
If you’d like to help us with our New Year’s resolution, forward our newsletter to a friend or family member using this sign-up link

For some more advice, be sure to check out this Forbes article