Mastering your New Year’s resolutions

ALBANY — This year I’m going to be a better person. This year I’m going to quit smoking. This year I’m going to start going to the gym every day. This year I’ll finally learn how to play guitar.

These are things we find ourselves saying as each new year comes around.

Even when we tell ourselves that resolutions are silly or even hopeless, sometimes we’ll still get the idea that somehow beginning in January, something about ourselves or our environment will be changed for the better, and that’s a good thing. Some of us commit to starting something new every single year, regardless of past success or failure, simply because it’s fun to imagine the outcome.

In the spirit of starting over or turning over a new leaf, here are some tips and tricks for improving your chances of success when it comes to your New Year’s resolutions.

Plan for the whole year

If your resolution is to make a permanent change, it’s not going to happen overnight unless your New Years resolution is to shave your head or buy your first package of organic beef. Planning for the year means understanding that missing a few days or a few months won’t be considered a failure. What’s that saying about falling off a horse? Or was it a wagon?

Planning for the whole year also means spacing out your goals into minor victories. For instance, if you want to read 50 books before 2020 and you’ve gone a while without reading anything, that’s going to be a giant milestone. If we bring that down to 48, that’s four books a month or roughly one a week. If you skip a few weeks, catching up could be extremely difficult, especially if you’re out of practice. But maybe after considering that long-term goal realistically, you could try to read one book a week or so and knock out a couple of extra on rainy days. Boom, you’ve read 50 books. If not, you’ve read more than you did last year, which is worth celebrating.

Think realistically

This follows up on the previous paragraph. It’s easy to set goals we’re not prepared for and then be disappointed by the lack of results. Let’s say you want to learn how to play “Bohemian Rhapsody” on guitar in time for your son’s 30th birthday party. Is this real life or is it fantasy? If you already know how to play a guitar or your instrument of choice, great, you’ve got this. If you’ve never touched a musical object other than a radio, this goal might need some altering, unless you somehow pull it off and therefore have succeeded in stunning your entire family with your homage to Queen.

If you’re making a big change, consider how realistic the goal is. If you want to completely eliminate sugar out of your diet, but you’ve never cut anything out of your diet before and you have low self-control (like this former vegan), failure might smack you right in the face before February. Then again, if you’ve already taken steps to reduce the sugar in your diet or are the kind of person who can do anything you set your mind to with confidence, cutting out sugar would be entirely possible.

A way to combat low motivation while ultimately reaching your goal is working up to something like reducing sugar gradually until by the end of the year you can’t even remember what a soft drink tastes like. This kind of doubles back to planning for the whole year, but we’re making changes here. Everything has to connect somehow.

Start with your mindset

Thinking that something is too hard or that you can’t do it is a recipe for failure. You’re less likely to win a game you think you’ll lose than if you know you’re going to try your best and you’re prepared to play. Most of us around southwest Georgia only speak one language. I encourage people to try for a second or even a third because of all the cultural and educational benefits one can gain from just being able to communicate with people from across the world. Most of the time the response comes down to “I’ve heard you can’t learn a language after a certain age” or “I wasn’t raised bilingual so my brain can’t do it.”

Guess how successful these people are.

The word “can’t” is a goal killer. Just because something is hard doesn’t mean it’s impossible. The best course of action when tackling a goal you’re worried you can’t do is to recognize that it will be hard and figure out what it’s going to take to get it done. Anything worth doing is going to be difficult, but that’s part of the fun. Taking on a difficult task that not a lot of people have completed is going to give you an extra boost of confidence on top of a sense of accomplishment. Your goals are worth the time and effort, and you can do them.

Do it with a friend

The buddy system isn’t just for swimming class. Starting off the new year with a new goal with a partner is an excellent way to follow through with your intentions. Not only will working as a team motivate you, it will also mean that there is another person who will keep you accountable.

Gym memberships soar during the beginning of the year and then trickle down as the weeks go by, and eventually all of those “new year, new me” fitness fiends have returned to their couches where they find the most comfort. If you’re worried you might burn out or lose interest in your $19.99 a month membership, going every day with a buddy will make you want to go. You can complain about leg day together, and you can give each other confidence when it comes to trying out the different kinds of equipment.

If you’re into free fitness, maybe you and your buddy could start walking together every day around a park or your neighborhood. Not only does walking with a friend increase your safety, it also gives you a reason to go outside.

Fitness is just an example, of course. The buddy system can be applied to any task you have planned for the new year, but make sure that friend is as game for it as you are.

Encourage the people around you

Maybe you’re not trying to create any resolutions for 2019. Maybe you think it’s silly that people think they can flip a switch and suddenly experience a life change. That doesn’t mean you should take the fun away from anyone else. Encouraging the people around you will bring you closer to them, whether they are friends, family members, partners or coworkers.

Taking everything said above, successfully completing a New Year’s resolution is time-consuming and sometimes painstaking. It can make a world of difference having one person say they’ve got your back, and for the people around you, that could be you. Plus, think of how fun it’ll be to watch someone else achieve something they really want to do.

Supporting the people around you could even be a New Year’s resolution all by itself.

New years do come with new beginnings, but how we actively participate in each year is what makes all the difference.