5 Tips to Keep Your Resolutions

It’s the beginning of the year. All the holiday parties are over, Christmas decorations are put away, the sweet treats are gone and your house is finally getting back to normal. It seems like change is in the air. You’ve had a long day and you finally have a quiet moment to yourself and you start thinking “I forgot to work out today” or “I still have three more glasses of water to drink” and now we are mid-month and you are struggling with keeping your promise to yourself.

Humans have actually been making New Year’s resolutions for centuries. According to History  “The practice of making resolutions for the new year is thought to have first caught on among the ancient Babylonians, who made promises in order to earn the favor of the gods and start the year off on the right foot.” Crazy!

It seems we still need help keeping our resolutions, sometimes. Here are five tips you can use to help you keep your resolutions:

Write it down.

Sure you’ve heard this one a million times. But seriously… write it down and stick it somewhere you will see it everyday. Rachel Hollis says she keeps her vision board with her goals in her closet and that helps her see it every day! I did this about three months ago and have already accomplished some!

Don’t go overboard.

Setting too many goals or resolutions will overwhelm you. If you set smaller goals you will feel like you are accomplishing more as you complete them. For example, if you want to lose weight, set your goals in 5 or 10 pound increments. If you are a visual person, track your progress on a chart or graph you can see regularly. Change is gradual!

Get an accountability partner.

I have an accountability partner for helping me get to bed at a decent time. Otherwise I would probably never get to sleep. We message each other every weeknight when we get to bed, even if it is after the time we were already supposed to be down for the night. Here’s the cool thing about this tip… my accountability partner isn’t someone I see everyday. She isn’t even in the same country! We are still able to keep in touch and be accountable through messages.

Attach your goal to an existing habit.

This one is fairly self explanatory. If your resolution is to not leave any dirty dishes in the sink before you go to bed, then every night before you head to the couch for your Netflix fix, wash those dishes! Find something that’s somewhat related to your resolution so it will remind you to do it.

You have to want it.

Let’s face it. If you don’t really want it to happen, you won’t do what you need to do in order to make it happen. You also have to be specific about what you want. Like I mentioned above, if you want to lose weight, how much do you want to lose? Set your goal. Don’t set yourself up for failure!

Let’s keep our resolutions this year. I know you have so many great intentions for yourself. The only person who can change yourself is you. You deserve all those great things!

You can follow along with Claire and her motherhood adventures on Instagram @daytodayclaire.