How to Establish Your New Year Resolution That Lasts

For years, I made the same resolution over and over again, and it never lasted

Most of the New Year resolutions fail by the 10th of January. It’s not about the goal being unrealistic or undefined. And it’s also not about willpower or patience.

Succeeding at your New Year’s resolutions is about establishing a system. This system has habits you’ll establish in a month. It’s so easy; everyone can do it.

We have similar goals and resolutions every year, and we are motivated to start. But life and our established routines come our way, and we give up after one or two weeks.

Motivation helps us to start, but it fades away in everyday life.

What happens is we put ourselves down thinking:

“I’m just lazy”
“I don’t have the willpower”
“I knew I’m gonna screw up again”
“I can never be successful”
“The goal was too big”
“I’ll never be able to do that”

and in a year the same happens again.

Don’t you want to end this negative circle?

Most people fail because they don’t know how to establish a system with habits. Since James Clear published his book ‘Atomic Habits,’ you’d think more people have succeeded.

But life comes in the way; we are disappointed in ourselves if we miss one, and then we’re stuck in the old habits again.

You are not lazy. You are human. You don’t know how to introduce a new system to your life yet.

I’ll show you how to:

establish a new positive habit
succeed at your New Year’s resolutions
connote change and new habits with more positivity
not let life get in the way

If you have already failed at this year’s resolutions, start again tomorrow.
Every day is a new beginning.

#1 Accepting change, yourself, and failing

The biggest reason why I failed (and most of you) is my negative thinking. I didn’t accept my humanity because I wanted to be perfect.

Every time I failed, I fell into a spiral of negative thoughts.

The first step to successfully establishing a new habit is changing your mindset about yourself.

You can’t succeed if you tell yourself you’re lazy and then don’t believe in yourself.

No change is possible if you don’t believe you can change.

If something comes up and you don’t do your new habit once, don’t put yourself down.

We are all humans. Nobody is perfect.

If you fail, you’ll get up and learn and start again.

Accept your imperfect self.

Perfection is an impossible goal. You can never reach it.

#2 A New Year’s resolution with a system

What is the goal of your resolution?

The goal is not as important as the steps getting you there.

The goal alone will not keep you motivated to change.

What is a daily or weekly habit that will get you to your goal?

Every day is a system of habits you’ve established over the years. You need to find a place in that system to add your new habit.

Before starting, think and plan:

When do I want to do the new habit?
What trigger habit can I use to add the new right after?
What needs to happen before?
What are the habits I can connect to?
What could be possible struggles?
What do I need to prepare?

A day is like a stack of habits. You do them automatically after each other.

You don’t need willpower to brush your teeth because it’s part of your morning routine system. I do it automatically after I put in my contact lenses.

It’s not a question anymore if I do it, but when my morning routine system starts.

You can use those established habits as a trigger for your new ones. I introduced the habit of flossing in the evening after brushing my teeth with this strategy.

And you can easily add something too.

#3 Plan for life coming in the way

What will you do if something comes up and you can’t do your newly established habit for a few days?

What if you go on holiday?

Plan ahead and be prepared!

When I go for a hike or take the train to travel for a few hours, I prepare snacks and drinks. Because I don’t know what will happen and I’m prepared for anything.

I could be stuck on the train because of an accident. I could be lost on the way up the mountain, or the hut with the food is closed today.

I’m not relying on someone or something else to provide food and drinks.

And that’s what you need to do with your habits too.

Don’t rely on someone else! Be prepared so you control the parameters.

I choose my snacks and drinks on my way; otherwise, I rely on someone else to provide healthy food for me.

If you already have a plan when life goes sideways, you don’t have to make intuitive (most of the time bad) decisions.

I prepare my food and drinks, so I don’t fall for the unhealthy snacks they offer because my willpower is low after an exhausting hike.

And you can use this strategy for everything.

Do you want to exercise regularly? I prepare your clothes, a reward and the exercises you want to do.

Preparation helps to reduce the need for willpower to start.

To wrap it up

Changing your life and establishing a new habit can be hard if you don’t know how to squeeze it into your routines and don’t believe in yourself.

We prefer to stay in our comfortable bubble. But life is about change, and change is inevitable. So you can connote change positively to make establishing new good habits easy, or be stuck and complain about changes.

Succeeding at your New Year’s resolutions can be easy, and with the steps from above, you now know how.

A last lesson: don’t give up!

There were times when I didn’t do my morning routine for a few days because I was exhausted or didn’t have time. But as soon as this season of stress was over I started again.