How to Keep a New Year's Resolution

Here are three pieces of advice that will show you how to keep a new year’s resolution.

This is going to be my first New Year’s Eve as a retired person. I’ve never been in this situation before so I’m not sure what, or how, I’ll be targeting any resolutions. I could try to exercise more, or eat less (not that I’m fat or anything). Having said that, I do have a little tummy that refuses to go down, so I must do something about it before it grows too much and I’ll end up overweight.

I think I’ll follow these suggestions myself this year, and see where that leads me.

In the meantime, good luck, and all the best to all out there who will be doing their utmost to keep their New Year’s Resolutions.

After Christmas, many will contemplate their future

Once Christmas comes and goes, many will reflect on their future in different ways. They have those precious few days between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve in which to think about how they can improve their life. For many, after filling their face with all the turkey, its trimmings, and all the sweeties and wine that come with this once-in-a-year occasion, their priority is to take it easy on consumption. I am guilty of being one such person, although I don’t feel too bad filling my face as thankfully it doesn’t happen all that often.

Many of us begin the New Year full of optimism and excitement for making things happen. Yet, quite a few soon give up on their goals and wait until the following year to even think about them again. This is even though we begin the New Year full of hope and excitement for making things happen. But we make resolutions for a reason, and that reason is that we have faith that they will, in some way, make our lives better. So, if you want to establish goals for this year that you will be able to achieve, the following will assist you how to keep a new year’s resolution.

1) Establish Reasonable and Attainable Objectives for Yourself

Your goals should be the first place you look when getting started. Are your expectations reasonable? Are they something that you can envision yourself accomplishing within the next year? You should challenge yourself to achieve your goals, but you should do so within the bounds of what is workable. If you enjoy sweets, setting a goal to exercise for two hours every single day is not a realistic expectation for most people. Neither is the expectation that you will completely abstain from eating any sweet food at all if you have a sweet tooth.

Try not to experiment with too many different things all at once. If you already play the piano, you should make it a point to improve your piano skills. Becoming healthier is always good. Also, learning a new language is a great target. But, to begin with, you should try to concentrate on achieving only one of these objectives. You can move on to the second goal once you have made the first goal into a habit or once you have reached the milestone that you were aiming for.

2) Recognize and Acknowledge Your Emotions

Understanding how you feel about things like overeating or other habits you may have is essential to seeing your goal through to the end. Although not all our New Year’s resolutions involve giving up something, this is one of the most common themes among those that do. If you are attempting to give up drinking, smoking, or a certain kind of food, it is important to realize that cravings come and go like waves. You should do your best to learn what causes your cravings so that you can avoid giving in to them. When it comes to trying to kick a vice, I do suggest you get proper help and not try to do it alone. It is far from easy. You might be successful for the first few days, but then you’ll slowly slide back to where you started from, or even worse.

The same is true for other things, such as physical activity. Think about how you feel when you put off working out because you don’t have the energy to do it and decide to do it the next day instead. Most likely, you’ll feel like you’ve let yourself down. Yet, when you exercise, not only are you ecstatic that you are making progress toward your goal, but you may also experience a surge of those endorphins!

3) Give Yourself Rewards Instead of Criticizing Yourself

When we are working towards certain rewards, rather than working to avoid certain punishments, we tend to work in a more efficient way. Thus, you should think of some ways to reward yourself for achieving your objectives. Instead of berating yourself and feeling guilty for not doing something, think about how you’ll feel and what you’ll do when you finally do something you’ve wanted to do for a long time.

Choose important benchmarks on your path to achieving your goals. This might be going one month without drinking alcohol or exercising every day for five consecutive days. Then, treat yourself when you reach those milestones. Rewards are a much more effective motivator than the threat of punishment.

On a personal note… I realize that there are many people out there who don’t like to celebrate these occasions. The main reason is that they have become single, through no fault of their own, and risk ending up lonely and isolated from the rest of society. The retired are the greater majority of people in this situation. Occasions like NYEs only bring them pain and desperation. For these, knowing how to keep a new year’s resolution will be pretty pointless.

Falling for a vice doesn’t help you, retired or not

One of the worst things these people can do is turn towards some vice to keep their minds off things, or to force themselves ‘to be happy’ like everybody makes out to be. The problem here is that this ‘happiness’ is all false, and like all false things, is short-lived.

There are quite a few vices out there, all tempting poor souls in need of warmth, company, and attention. One such place that is ideal for people in difficult situations is none other than a casino. The place where you, innocently enough, believe can make your dreams come true. The place where you can win millions overnight. Anyway, one can dream, but casinos are real and can be a real problem too. They can be online, or brick-and-mortar types. Both are an issue and both are dangerous. When you’re just starting, getting your feet wet, things will be all wine and roses, then the situation soon gets sour, BIG TIME.