Anyone out there religious about their coffee orders? I don’t drink much coffee, but I rarely order anything other than an almond milk latte. The primary reason is because my body doesn’t love dairy, but it’s also because I love the way it tastes. It isn’t too sweet, but it takes the edge off black coffee. Now, I don’t talk a lot about coffee, but I do a lot of talking with coffee. Whenever I’m catching up with an old friend, we often meet up at a coffee shop and get up to date on each other’s lives over a cup of Joe, which is why I thought a “coffee chat” would be the perfect first entry in the “Little Thoughts” section of the blog. The purpose of this section is to provide a spot for things worth sharing that may not belong in the “Style” or “Lifestyle” sections of the blog. Rather than call it “Miscellaneous,” I thought that “Little Thoughts” was a far more appropriate title as I share some of the inner workings of my brain!
For today’s “little thought,” I wanted to discuss New Year’s resolutions! With the first two months of 2019 in the books, a lot of us have probably started to slack on our New Years resolutions. It’s around this time of year that our New Year’s resolutions start to fail. Whether it be because people feel discouraged over the lack of progress or get sidetracked with other things, many people can’t quite seem to uphold the goals they set at the beginning of the year, regardless of whether they’re about health and fitness, relationships, or their career. Personally, I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions. I dislike how much pressure surrounds them. I don’t feel like anyone should wait until January to make changes in their lives. You can set new goals for yourself at any point in the year, and you don’t need to wait until January to try and improve your life. With that being said, I usually do set some New Year’s resolutions each year. A few are very personal and more involved, and a few are rather trivial. One of them is that I’m trying to be better about updating my phone and backing up my laptop. It might seem silly, but these are usually things I put off until I have to. However, they never take as long as I think they will, and it’s a good habit to be in. This isn’t a very serious or high stakes resolution, but I have many other goals that I’m working on right now that carry much more significance. I’ll be sure to share these things with you in other posts, for I’m sure many of you can relate! With that being said, regardless of your goals, here are some tips for maintaining your New Year’s resolutions. Large or small, these tips should help keep you on track to accomplishing your goals.
Five Tips to Maintaining Your New Year’s Resolutions
- Be realistic and plan. Setting a realistic resolution for yourself is important because you need to ensure that you aren’t working toward the impossible. You want to actually achieve the goal you’re setting in the first place. With that being said, you also want to plan out how you’re going to accomplish that goal. Are you trying to lose weight? Then maybe you incorporate one more day of working out per week, then stop buying sugary dessert, then add two more days of working out than you were before, and then eat cleaner meals. These individual steps bring you closer and closer to your goals. Before you know it, you will have made more progress than you expect. However, the most important thing is that you stick to your plan! It doesn’t do much for you if you have a plan and don’t act on it.
- Don’t let failure prevent you from trying again. If you set a realistic goal for yourself, this is especially true. The road to success is rocky and everyone hits bumps in the road to achieving their goals. However, if you don’t pick yourself up again after you fall, then you significantly lower your chances of not reaching your goals because you aren’t even trying anymore. Often times, those hiccups are opportunities for you to reevaluate and decide what’s working for you, what isn’t, and how you may need to adjust your roadmap to success.
- Don’t be too hard on yourself when you make a mistake. We’re human! As much as we wish it wouldn’t happen, it’s bound to. What’s important is that you keep moving forward and do your best. Don’t think that one mistake ruined the whole day or the whole week. Accomplishing your New Year’s resolutions is dependent on a whole lot more than just one mistake. Everything will be fine. Only consider reevaluating if these mistakes develop into a habit.
- Remember to reward yourself! It’s important to recognize the progress you’ve made, especially if you’ve hit a milestone that was particularly difficult. Life is full of little victories. Properly acknowledging how far you’ve come also incentivizes you to keep going and stay motivated.
- Just do it. The Nike catchphrase comes in handy more often than many of us probably care to admit. Often times, we stand in the way of ourselves. Frequently, the task at hand isn’t nearly as difficult as we make it out to be, but we get in our own heads and convince ourselves otherwise. So suck it up, and just do it. You’ll thank yourself later.
So how am I doing on my New Year’s resolutions? I’m doing pretty well! My phone and laptop don’t have any little red notification bubbles telling me I need to update, and I’ve been backing up both devices regularly. I set a recurring reminder weekly so that I stay on top of it. I promise to share the more personal goals in separate posts of their own. I am happy to say though that I am very happy with my progress so far. Good luck to everyone on their New Year’s resolutions! What have you decided to work on this year?
xx
Emily
