How to Make Your New Year's Resolutions Stick

I have such a love-hate relationship with New Year’s resolutions.  They’re easy to make and I get so excited to have these new goals, but I have trouble following through (me and everyone else, I know).  In my grand quest to make 2015 The Year the Resolutions Actually Stuck, I have decided to review which of my resolutions from the past I actually achieved and why.

The successes (I won’t go into the failures, that would take up 10+ pages!)

Taking my vitamins every day

Cutting dairy out of my diet

Folding my laundry

Not wearing makeup every day

Going to the gym twice a week (was a consistent habit until the last couple months when I got too busy/didn’t make time…DARN! Still, though, I managed it for long enough that I know why it worked)

These goals are all unique, and yet I somehow managed to accomplish all of them…How?

I used my existing routines.

Seriously!  It works because it’s easier to add a little extra to something that already exists than it is to create something entirely new and different.  This is especially true if that something that requires that you readjust your life to accommodate it. 

It is also easier to remember if you add it to something you already do daily because your brain has the routine hardwired.  Humans like ritual and order.  Many people have a bedtime or morning “ritual”- a specific order in which they do things.  When a new habit becomes part of that specific order, your brain starts associating that habit with the ritual, and it starts to feel unnatural to not complete the routine. 

Example #1: Taking my vitamins became the last thing I did before getting into bed.  I brushed and flossed my teeth, washed my face, took out my contacts, put of pajamas, and took my vitamins.  I already had a bedtime routine, I just added one more thing to it.  Previously, I had tried setting alarms or saying I would take my vitamins at a certain time of day, but ultimately, those all failed because it wasn’t natural for me to create a whole new habit at an arbitrary time.  When I forgot to take my vitamins, a little alarm went off in my head, giving me the feeling that my bedtime routine wasn’t finished yet!

Example #2: Cutting dairy out of my diet, which is more of a “negative goal” because it subtracts or changes something from my life instead of adding it or creating a new habit.  Every day, I took my existing tea routine (make tea, steep, add honey, add milk) and I put that steeping time to use: I went and retrieved my nondairy milk.  Adding milk was already part of the routine, so it was just a matter of changing the type of milk, not the habit itself.

So, since I have figured out that the easiest and most effective way (for me, at least) is to add or change a habit to an existing routine than to create a whole new one, I will be strategically incorporating the following into my existing routines.

Lily’s 2015 Resolutions

Drink 2 more glasses of water each day (one glass as part of my morning routine, one as part of my bedtime routine)

Keep a bullet journal (morning and evening routines)

Write a week’s worth of blog posts at a time (my Sunday routine, when I prepare for the week)

Track my blog and business progress (my end-of-month routine, when I review what I did and need to do for the next month)

What are your 2015 resolutions or goals?  What tricks or methods for keeping resolutions have worked for you in the past?  Share in the comments!