5 Ways to Keep Your New Year's Resolutions

The American philosopher and psychologist William James said “Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.” Since thinking or deciding is the first step in launching a new behavior, I began wondering what the primary methods of success are as we all run headlong in our New Year’s resolutions and new habits. What does it take to make that new habit stick past January 1? What are the key principles in transforming our lives to make conscious new habits become unconscious routines? Below are five key steps that can give you a running chance at achieving those New Year’s resolutions and making them work all year long:

I will never weigh 140 pounds again (the 80s are over), but I would love to be 155 pounds. I could realistically achieve this goal in a year or less if I put my mind to it and held myself accountable. Maybe getting down to a size five isn’t realistic for your body type and history. Would you be satisfied if you lost 15 pounds? Avoid generalizations like "get in shape" and define exactly what that means for you. New behaviors thrive under realistic, achievable goal-setting. Pace your goals and build upon your incremental success. Measure your progress and, as I discuss in step five, chart your achievements.

Don’t muddy the waters trying to change ten things at once. Loading your proverbial plate with a bunch of stringent to-do's will only overwhelm you and ensure that by February 15 you’ll just have an annoying list of empty goals posted to your fridge. Separate your goals into primary and secondary categories — which ones are most important to you and which ones can wait awhile?

Experts agree that focusing on one new habit every 30 days is the best approach and offers the best chance of success. Give yourself 30 days to erode the groove of your old habit and set a new single habit in motion. Then move on to the next habit and apply the same principle — by year’s end, you have 12 new positive ways you’ve changed your life, one (sane) month at a time.

Pride is a big motivator — going public with your plan to engage in a new habit and letting those close to you hold you accountable can reinforce positive behavior and keep you on track. Let your kids know you’ve decided to replace that hour of late-night TV with an hour of reading on the treadmill. When 10:00 p.m. rolls around, their expectations and encouragement might be the extra nudge you need. Go public with your success too — celebrate your incremental victories don’t be afraid to toot your own horn.

From checkbook registers to grocery lists, we document everything. But when it comes to new habits, we miraculously avoid putting pen to paper. Don’t be vague — put things down in black and white. Document your goal, and chart every day how you’ve succeeded or failed to meet it. Charting is an essential step in taking a behavior out of the abstract realm and making it a reality. Once you’ve adopted the new habit and it has become part of your natural routine, you can dispense with that chart and move on to the next habit you want to tackle.

Whether you’re setting a new resolution in motion on January 1 or June 12, these principles can help you avoid the pitfalls that turn so many treadmills into coat racks and leave so many positive ideas waiting in the wings. The structure that you create around your new habit will help support you during those "ugh moments" we all have when we begin to fight inertia and start moving forward. Happy new year — and happy new resolutions. 

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How Did My 2010 Resolutions Go?

As 2010 draws to a close, it’s time to take a look at my resolutions for the year and see how they’ve gone.

1. Lose 40 pounds

Result: Partial success

What do I mean by partial success? I mean that I did lose weight during 2010 and made it halfway to my goal by losing twenty pounds during the year. Best of all, the year ended on a very positive note, with most of the weight loss occurring in the last two months of the year.

I made great progress on this goal early in the year, then it rebounded during the period where I was editing my book and facing other stresses in my life. As summer ended, I was nearly back to where I started, but during the fall, I took control of things again in a positive fashion.

My biggest challenge is getting exercise. I can cut back on my food intake without much problem, but exercise is the continual challenge because my work is largely sedentary, as are my main hobbies (reading and gaming). For me, when I cut back on food, I have to be careful to not cut back too much or I get mentally and physically tired. Diet usually results in about 3/4 lb. loss per week if I hit that fine line of meeting my nutritional needs but not consuming excess calories.

The big difference for me is exercise – when I can get it. This, of course, points straight at a potential 2011 resolution, doesn’t it?

2. Pay cash for a replacement for my truck.

Result: Complete success

If you were paying attention back in late March, our family bought a 2004 Honda Pilot using cash off of Craigslist. We have been extremely happy with the vehicle, as it fits our family of five very well for road trips (meaning we can travel to visit our parents with plenty of room for the needed luggage, plus the safety of a four wheel drive in the winter months).

The only maintenance and repair cost I’ve put into the vehicle since acquiring it is the 100,000 and 105,000 mile maintenances, which I did as one big package at about the 103,000 mile mark. That was a bit expensive, but the vehicle has kept running like a champ.

3. Learn to play the piano.

Result: Success

I wouldn’t say complete success here because I’ve learned that it’s a long, long process to get good at the piano. I can play simple arrangements now and work through new songs by simply sight reading. I am happy with my progress throughout the year, especially considering that I’ve never played an instrument or looked at sheet music before in my life.

I’ve been lucky to have a great piano instructor, Diane Helmer, who really needs to have a website to promote her work. She didn’t just sit down and make me learn things the way she thought I “ought” to learn them, but instead figured out what my goals were and is helping me to achieve them. Diane, get a website and you’ll get a link from The Simple Dollar!

I fully intend to keep up my piano playing for years to come, and my two oldest children are beginning to express interest as well (which was an ulterior motive of this).

4. Reduce my entertainment and hobby spending by 50%.

Result: Middling success

My calculation so far is that my entertainment and hobby spending in 2010 is down about 35% from 2009, which is close to my goal but didn’t quite reach it.

Here’s why I still see some success, though: I took to doing a lot of trading via the internet of DVDs, books, board games, and other items this year. If you do not include the postage for these trades, I’m actually very close to my 50% reduction that I planned for for this year.

My hobby and entertainment spending did go down drastically. The biggest drop was in DVD purchases, which almost vanished. Gaming spending had about a 10% drop overall. Book spending went down about 40%. The only area that went up was a subscription to Netflix.

I’m happy with the changes, and I suspect 2011 will have lower spending than 2010 because right now I actually have a backlog of games to play, books to read, and films to watch.

Overall

I’m pretty pleased with my 2010 resolution performance. It’s not perfect, but I set some very stiff goals for myself during the year and I achieved (or mostly achieved) all of them.

Going through this process has helped me figure out some goals for 2011, which I’m going to share with you in the coming weeks. I tentatively have three of them in place and you should be able to guess one of them if you’ve read this article.

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