SELF-CARE: 5 Science-Backed Strategies to Help You Stick to Your New Year’s Goals + FREE My Personal Compass Worksheet

I recently shared that I absolutely love January.

Yes, I’ll admit that this might have something to do with the fact that I live in California and not Wisconsin (where I’m sure it’s probably freezing right now!).

But what really lights me up about January is the chance to start fresh with a clean slate and have a whole year stretching before me to achieve a goal or create a change that’s important to me.

And even if you don’t really like January the way that I do, I bet there’s still a part of you that feels excited about the opportunity it brings—the opportunity to work toward a goal or change that you’d like to achieve by the end of the year.

For example, maybe you want to experience more joy in your life, find your soulmate, or spend your days doing something that lights you up (instead of just slogging away at a job you hate).

In my last blog post, I shared 5 game-changing tips for selecting and pursuing a goal or change that will help you enjoy one of your best years yet.

The reality, though, is that even when you’ve selected a goal that’s right for you and promised yourself that you’ll prioritize it, it can be easy to eventually lose motivation and focus, get sidetracked, or even drop the ball on pursuing it.

And before you know it, it’s the end of the year, and you haven’t moved the needle much on making your goal a reality. That’s why it isn’t surprising that 80–90% of New Year’s resolutions fail every year.

My dear, I don’t want you to look at that 80–90% figure and think, “Well, what’s the point of even trying then? Most people fail, so I probably will too.”

Because you don’t need to be one of these people. Instead, your New Year’s goal or change can be part of the 10–20% that DOES succeed.

After all, achieving your goal isn’t about being lucky or having the stars align to create the perfect conditions for success.

Instead, you can significantly boost your chances of sticking to and achieving your goal by using science-backed behavioral strategies to maintain your motivation and focus.

What kind of strategies am I talking about? That’s exactly what I’ll be sharing with you in this post.

Keep reading below to learn 5 scientific strategies that will help you stick to and achieve your big goal for the year.

You’ve got this!

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• Break Up Your Goal into Specific, Actionable Tasks

Many people fail to maintain their motivation because they focus on a big, abstract goal, like “being happier,” “creating a lifestyle I love,” or “getting into shape.”

It’s not that these are bad goals to have. But because they’re big, overarching goals, it’s hard to know what specifically we need to do to make progress toward and ultimately achieve one of them. That’s why these goals can seem daunting and leave us feeling like we have no idea of where to start when it comes to tackling them.

Now, if your New Year’s goal sounds like one of these big, abstract goals, you don’t need to change it. You just need to break it down into small and specific actionable steps or tasks. The smaller and easier each step or task is, the better.

For example, if your goal is to “create a lifestyle that lights you up,” you might decide to start off by doing something you enjoy for 20 minutes every day for the next three months. This way, you can create time in your day to do something enjoyable and sample different activities to find out what you love the most.

Once this 3-month period ends, your next step might be to identify the activity that you enjoyed doing the most and spend the next 3 months pursuing it in a more focused and formal way. If, for instance, you really enjoyed painting, you might decide to take a painting class that runs every Saturday for 12 weeks. Or if you enjoyed reading, perhaps you decide to join a local book club.

Then, you might spend the last 6 months of the year integrating your new passion into your life in a bigger way. If you’ve been enjoying painting, for example, this could mean painting something every week and selling your work at a local craft market, opening an online store for it, or simply sharing it on social media.

• Identify The When and Where

It’s great to break your overall goal into specific, simple, and actionable steps. But you can make it even easier to stick to your New Year’s goal if you create a concrete plan for tackling each step.

In fact, in a 2001 study published in the British Journal of Health Psychology, researchers found that when they had participants come up with a specific plan for exercising every week, 91% of them exercised every week. In comparison, only 38% of participants who didn’t develop a specific plan exercised every week.

What’s important to include in your concrete plan for tackling each step or task of your goal? Where and when you plan to do or complete the step. For example, if the first step of your goal is to spend 20 minutes every day doing something you enjoy, you might decide that you’ll do this task from 7:30 to 7:50 p.m. each evening in your den.

It can also be helpful to create unavoidable reminders about the task and plan, such as by adding calendar reminders to your phone or sticking post-it notes on your fridge.

When you carve out dedicated time for working on your goal and have a specific plan for when and where you’ll tackle it, you’ll boost your chances of following through with goal-related tasks.

• Stack Your Habits

Another strategy that can help you stick to your New Year’s goal is habit stacking. With habit stacking, you piggyback a new task or habit onto an existing habit that you already have. Because you’re already used to doing the existing habit, piggybacking the new task or habit onto it makes it more likely that you’ll do it.

For example, let’s say that every day after dinner (around 7:00 p.m.), you take your dog for a walk. You could decide that right after you walk your dog (something you finish around 7:30 p.m.), you’ll do your 20 minutes of fun activity time. When you pair your activity time with your habitual dog-walking time, you’ll be more likely to see your activity time as a natural extension of a strong habit you already have. And you’ll be more likely to do it.

Here are other examples of habit stacking:

• After I brush my teeth (existing habit), I’ll floss (new habit/task).
• After I wash the dishes (existing habit), I’ll meditate for 10 minutes (new habit/task).
• After I shower and get dressed (existing habit), I’ll set my intentions for the day (new habit/task).

• Track Your Progress

It’s much easier to maintain your motivation and focus on a goal if you feel like you’re making progress toward achieving it. In fact, according to the progress principle, making progress toward something that’s important to you can provide a big boost to your thoughts, feelings, and motivation during the day.

That’s why you can make it easier to stick to your New Year’s goal by tracking your progress toward it. When you track your progress, it’s easy to visualize the time and effort that you’ve put into your goal, the steps you’ve completed, and the results you’ve achieved.

There are lots of ways to track progress toward your goal. And the best way may depend on the type of goal you have. For example, if you’re currently working on spending 20 minutes every day doing something you enjoy, you might use a calendar or app to check off each day that you follow through on the task. In comparison, if your goal is to train for a half marathon, you might use an app to track your distance and speed each time you go for a run.

No matter what kind of goal you have for this year, you might also find it helpful to have an accountability partner. An accountability partner is someone you check in with on a regular basis about the progress you’ve made toward your goal since the last check-in. When you know that you’ll have to tell someone about the progress you have or haven’t made, it might give you the push you need to keep working toward your goals—especially during times when you’re facing an obstacle or feeling less motivated.

• Always Come Back to Your “Why”

When you first set your New Year’s goal at the beginning of the year, you might be beaming with motivation, optimism, and excitement about your goal. But as the weeks go on and you experience what it actually feels like to put in the time and energy to work toward your goal, you might find your motivation and excitement fading.

Whether you’re no longer in the honeymoon phase of your New Year’s goal or have hit an obstacle or setback, it’s normal to experience dips in your motivation and focus. The key is to stop these dips from derailing your progress altogether. And that’s where the idea of returning to your “why” comes in.

Your “why” is your deep, underlying reason for pursuing your goal. Remembering your “why” can help you find the motivation you need to keep taking steps forward when things feel hard or your motivation just isn’t there.

For example, if your goal is to create a lifestyle that lights you up, you might think that you want this lifestyle so that you can have a life that allows you to do fun things instead of just working and doing household chores all the time.

But if you take the time to go deeper, you might uncover that your true “why” is to feel happy, energized, and inspired every day so that you can show up in your relationships as the person you want to be, not as someone who’s burned out and miserable. Returning to this “why” whenever you feel unmotivated, lost, or stuck can give you the inspiration you need to keep working toward your goal.

YOU Have the Power to Set Yourself Up for Success

When you set a New Year’s goal, you don’t have to assume that you’re also setting yourself up for failure.

Because when you use science-backed behavioral strategies to maintain your motivation and focus, you can dramatically increase your chances of sticking to (and actually achieving) your New Year’s goal.

Specifically, when you break your goal up into concrete steps, come up with plans for following through with them, track your progress, and remember why you’re doing it all in the first place, you set yourself up for success.

You make it more likely that you’ll keep taking steps forward, persevere through the tough times, and feel successful when you look back on your year in December. And most of all, you’ll boost your chances that by the end of the year, you’ll be enjoying the happiness, love, or meaning that you’ve been longing for.

Of course, a big part of sticking with and achieving your New Year’s goal is to select the right goal in the first place. And that all comes down to knowing what your heart wants and needs.

Not sure what your heart wants right now?

That’s exactly why I created the My Personal Compass worksheet.

It’ll help you get clarity on your needs, desires, passions, and dreams so that you can set, work toward, and achieve the goals that are right for you. 

And if you haven’t done so already, follow me on my Facebook page Vera Velini – The Assertive Happiness Coach. That way, you’ll be among the first to hear about new blog posts, resources, and courses.

Until next time!

Vera

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