With another year drawing to a close, many of us are pondering our New Year’s resolutions for 2018. A lot of our goals will be lofty—maybe a tad too lofty— with a reported 92 percent of Americans "doomed to fail," most resolutions will fall into three categories; love, health and finances.
It’s widely known that most of us have a hard time completing even the easiest goal on our list. According to 2016 research by StatisticBrain.com, over 70 percent of resolutions are maintained throughout the first week of the New Year, with the number drastically dropping to just 30 percent in the following six months.
Many Americans simply lose their motivation, while many set too ambitious or too many goals.
The most popular resolution that fails? Does, “get out of debt,” sound familiar? Along with this, other commonly broken resolutions are:
Shedding those extra pounds
Trying something new
Eating healthier
Getting more sleep and,
Being less stressed. Go figure.
I’m sure that most of us have all written resolutions like these down, filled with the vigor and excitement only a New Year can inspire. And I’m sure we’ve looked at that list multiple times in the weeks to follow, felt a touch of guilt and then balled the post-it note up and thrown it in the trash.
Although Oregon is already doing pretty well in terms of not breaking our resolutions (tenth out of all fifty states) here are some tips to help you succeed with your New Year’s goals.
1. Stay practical. Form resolutions you know you can keep.
2. Make a plan of action. Many people set themselves up for failure by writing a goal down on the list, but not looking into what is required to solve that goal, or how to get there.
3. Finally, some progress is better than none. Many individuals may have a black or white attitude. It is not that you either completed your resolution or you did not. If the goal was to lose 15 pounds and you have lost four, that is not a failure. That’s progress. Congratulate yourself on the effort you have made towards your goal, don’t beat yourself up for how far you still have to go.
Another factor that may be setting you behind is your location. If you don’t live anywhere near a gym, your motivation to go out and exercise daily may be lower. The same goes towards restaurants. If most of the eating options in your area are limited to fast food, eating healthy while dining out may be more difficult.
Keep this in mind as we enter the New Year. Who knows, you might end up surprising yourself in terms of success and motivation.
Check out the The Best 10 Cities for Keeping Your New Year's Resolutions by WalletHub:
1. Seattle, WA
2. San Francisco, CA
3. San Diego, CA
4. Scottsdale, AZ
5. Salt Lake City, UT
6. San Jose, CA
7. Orlando, FL
8. Irvine, CA
9. Austin, TX
10. Portland, OR
