Your Guide to Turning Resolutions into Habits for Success

Learn how to flip New Year’s resolutions into successes with this guide to turning resolutions into habits. No more giving up on goals before you even get started!

It’s the new year, and you have made your resolutions. How’s it going so far? As of the publishing of this post, we’re 5 days in. Are you sticking with them, or have you already slipped up and lost the battle?

It’s not because they are unattainable; you are just approaching them all wrong.

As a woman in my fifties, my New Year’s resolutions look a lot different from those I had 10 years ago. Ten years ago, I was more focused, more driven, and a lot more organized. I was working a 9-5 job and building a business. I didn’t have time to be anything less than perfect.

Now, in my fifties, a lot of days it’s more about surviving. The process of achieving and getting things done looks a lot different.

I stopped making resolutions and started setting goals. That worked for a while, but inevitably, I would fail at the goals and everything I had to do to achieve them.

The goals looked like this:

• Cleaning up the kitchen before going to bed
• Reading one book a month
• Meal planning weekly
• Losing 45lbs by June

All simple goals…until they weren’t. Dishes piled up in the sink, most months I didn’t even pick up a book, meal planning sucked, and I procrastinated on working to lose weight until I just gave up on my deadline.

I didn’t have a plan to help me achieve the goals I had set.

Here’s the thing: most resolutions involve changing habits to achieve them.

Turning Resolutions into Habits

The first thing to do is to stop using the term resolution. It’s too heavy, and you’re setting yourself up for failure. Most of the time, resolutions have no plan for success.

Big goals can feel overwhelming, but breaking them into smaller, manageable steps makes them much easier to achieve. When those small steps turn into daily habits, they naturally lead you toward your bigger goals.

The key to reaching your goals and sticking to your resolutions is taking the time to build habits that become part of your routine.

One of my big goals this year is to lose weight. It’s a vague goal that has no hope of happening. So, I’m breaking it into smaller goals, which, over time, will become new habits that will help me reach that big goal of losing weight.

Here’s how I’m breaking it down:

• I will cut back on soda by drinking one in the morning, then water until dinner. Over time, drinking water will become a habit (which I haven’t done until now), and drinking less soda will help me lose weight. Eventually, I will stop drinking soda altogether.
• Meal planning to eat healthier, so I don’t grab what is convenient in the refrigerator, which will help me lose weight.
• I’ll start walking every other day, short distances to start and build up to every day and longer walks. Walking will help me lose weight.

It takes about 2 months for a new habit to become routine, to do it without really thinking about it. It won’t happen overnight, so stick with it until it becomes second nature.

Changing these habits will get me to my big goal. It’s not about perfection, it’s about progress.

Resolutions, by their nature, are a setup for failure. Use this easy structure to set goals that become habits and get ready to succeed in the new year!

You got this!