Let’s Keep Our Resolutions This Year. Here’s How

New Year’s Resolutions are a hit or miss. Either you keep them, or you don’t.

Sadly, U.S. News reports that about 80% of folks will fall off of their goals by February.

But most of us know this because we’ve been in that boat, right? We’ve set New Year’s Resolutions, rowed along for a few weeks, only to jump into the water and right back to our old ways. It’s discouraging and makes people doubt themselves and other people when they talk about New Year’s Resolutions.

There’s always room for improvement and room for change. And contrary to some beliefs, change is always possible.

Here are a few ways you can keep your resolutions/goals for the year.

1. Start Small

One reason why so many people fail at their resolutions is because they pile it on too high. We set unfair expectations for ourselves such as:

• Going from hitting the gym sporadically to going everyday
• Going from eating out to cooking healthy meals everyday
• Going from hardly reading to finishing five books each month
• Going from spending half our days on social media to just an hour

And we expect to make these changes from December 31st to January 1st, all in the matter of a 24-hour period.

Let’s analyze this.

Imagine suddenly giving a person who’s been starving for two weeks a salad, fruit and a smoothie. Sure, the food may be healthy, but their body isn’t ready to receive it. You have to nurse that person back to health, slowly but surely.

It’s the same when we try to set too many goals.

You can’t expect yourself to change overnight. Set your goals/resolutions, but choose maybe just one to work on implementing. And slowly but surely, you’ll see a change.

Remember, these are resolutions you have for the whole year, not just a day. Give yourself time to work on them.

2. Break Your Goals Into Sizeable Portions

Many of us set a yearly goal then just leave it alone. For example, maybe one of your goals is to start a business this year. That’s a great goal. But it’s also a pretty big one and one that includes steps you may not be too familiar with. Something you can do to make your goal more attainable and making sure that you continue to work on it is to break it down by month, week and maybe even by day.

Okay, so let’s look at this:

• 2019 goal: I want to start a Black-owned cafe in my local town.
  • January 2019: Nail down all of the materials I need to start this cafe.
    • Week 1: Study other cafes to see what their business structure is like.
    • Week 2: Track down useful business resources in my community and online that I can take advantage of. Are there any grants I could possibly apply for later?
    • Week 3:  Find out what it would take for me to acquire a location.
    • Week 4: How would I get coffee and other products? What else do I need to know?

And so, the list goes on and you can fill it out for the rest of the year, based on your needs and time-frame. This can be done with each of your goals.

As you break down what needs to be done each week, you can also take daily steps to reach your weekly goal that will, in turn, help you reach your monthly, then yearly goal.

If you use a planner, schedule out your weekly and daily tasks so you’ll always see it.

3. Find Ways to Keep Yourself Accountable

One thing I noticed is that some YouTubers that I’m subscribed to share their resolutions with their audience at the beginning of the year. They may do a 6-month check-in, then they’ll do an end-of-year check-in. That way, they basically announce to the world whether or not they met their goals.

In no way am I pushing you to announce your goals to the world (unless that works for you), but I am encouraging you to implement some kind of accountability.

There are a number of ways you could do this:

• Create an accountability group with your friends so you all can keep yourselves on track.
• Join an in-person or online accountability group with people who have your same goals.
• Follow YouTubers or those on social media who share your same goals. You can seek inspiration and motivation from them.
• Pray or meditate, whichever works for you, and gain strength from your Source.
• Keep a journal where you can put your journey on paper. Then, if you look back on it and realize you’ve fallen off of your goal, you can get back on.
• Set a reminder for yourself each month to “check in” on your future self. Ask yourself if you’ve been keeping up on your goal tasks for the month. Include some encouraging words to help get yourself back on track.
• If you go to some kind of therapy, share your goals with your therapist. They may be able to help keep you accountable.  

4. Don’t Give Up

You’re striving to make a change in your life for the better. That’s an amazing thing. And guess what? Because you’re doing such an amazing thing, there’s going to be trials associated with it.

“There’s this idea that it’s supposed to be easy, and that’s unrealistic. Minister Farrakhan teaches that anything of value is accompanied by a difficulty factor. The greater the value, the greater the difficulty. Expect it to be a challenge and accept it! Daily goals and adjusting to the new routine will strengthen discipline,” said Ebony Muhammad, a life coach.

You may stumble, you may trip, you may even fall. But don’t ever give up.

You are worth improving your life for. You are worth the difficulty. You are worth dusting yourself off and getting back up for.

Don’t give up.

Minister Farrakhan says, “Self-Improvement is the basis of community development.”

It’s when we take up the great task of improving ourselves that we can truly improve the world.