Seven Tips for Keeping Your New Year’s Resolutions

5. Plan for setbacks.

Come January 1, 2010, you will not suddenly become perfect and mistake-free. In fact, you can bet that in your journey to weight loss, getting in shape or becoming more relaxed, you will stray from your plan from time to time. Such experiences can be used to strengthen your resolve and reinforce your healthy coping strategies if plan for them. Before you start your new change plan in earnest, think about potential pitfalls along the way, then brainstorm ways you might successfully handle them—and write those coping strategies down so they’re easily accessible when you need them.

[Try this stress-busting yoga sequence from Sadie Nardini.]

6. Keep written track of your progress.

Before you even tackle changes, be sure to spend time writing out why this change is important to you. Once you start your plan, use a journal, spreadsheet, bulletin board with pictures and notes, or whatever works best for you to make your progress concrete. The point: The more visible you make your progress (including how you handled slip-ups), the stronger and more confident you’ll be in your resolve.

7. Consider making just one new year’s resolution.

Making one healthy change tends to create or reinforce other healthy changes. For example, working out may make you want to eat better, and losing a bit of weight may lead you to the gym. But it can be a good idea to create a dominant resolution, which may in fact be supported and reinforced in part by other healthy habits. But creating a bunch of equal resolutions may mean that your change energy disperses among too many goals, leaving you without success in any of them. So think about keeping it simple and choosing the change that you feel you are most likely to achieve (and the measurable steps to support that), thus boosting your confidence before you tackle more.

Pages: 1 2