How to Stick with your New Year’s Goals
New Year’s. I’m sure you’ve all read the statistics that follow along with the success rates of New Year’s resolutions. So instead of me sitting here and regurgitating the depressing results from past years, I wanted to come up with some tips and processes that, when implemented, may increase your chances of success as we enter into the New Year with our goals.
Identify Your Goal
This is the first—and perhaps the easiest—step in beginning your journey towards a better lifestyle.
Your goal could be anything. Maybe it’s walking your dog more, eating better, or creating a savings plan so that you and your pup can take the trip you’ve always wanted to embark on. You name it!
Take some time to rack your brain and consider the goal you want to carry into 2024.
Identify Your “Why”
This, in my opinion, may be the most important step. We’ve seen it happen year after year: people set a New Year’s goal and ride the wave of excitement and hype. But the moment that wave loses momentum, so do they.
Eating better stops being fun, saving money stops being fun, clipping on your jogging leash and running with your dog every day stops being fun. So what do you do when the hype dies and you lose motivation? You need to fall back onto your “why.” Why am I pursuing my goal?
If your goal is to eat better, you might say, “That’s simple; my ‘why’ is that I want to be healthier.” And there’s nothing wrong with that, but I feel like it needs to run deeper. A great place to start when deciding what your “why” is, is to look at what you are passionate about or what has left a lasting impression. If you can tie it into your goal, you have a huge advantage at success.
Here’s an example of what could make a strong “why”: In my own family, having high blood sugar is not uncommon, so my “why” when it comes to eating better could be that I want to stop a pattern of diabetes in my family. The “why” aligns with the goal, but it carries more weight than just a surface level why, and it’s certainly better than not having a “why” at all.
Only you can decide what your “why” is, but make sure it’s strong enough for you to fall back on.
Create Accountability.
Taking steps towards creating accountability with your goals can be a huge help. Having an accountability partner is a great way you can implement this in your life.
Try finding someone who shares the same goal, and then support each other. If you are wanting to save money so that you can take that trip you and your dog having be dreaming of, find a travel companion that shares that same goal, then hold each other accountable as you save money for your adventure.
Setting short term goals can also help hold you accountable. If your goal is to be more active, try signing up for a 5k as a means to working toward your ultimate goal, which is to have an active lifestyle.
Make it fun
Working toward your goal won’t always be fun, but there are usually some creative ways to help break up the monotony. When I’m preparing for a foot race, sometimes my training regimen can get a little dull. One of my favorite ways to help combat this is to snap on my Terrain D.O.G. Car Seat Cover, grab my dog’s canine swim vest, and hit the road with my pup for an evening of paddle boarding on the lake. It’s a fun way to keep working towards my goal, but it provides a break from my normal training plan.
What to Do when It Gets Hard
Earlier this year I agreed to run a 100k (about 65 miles) foot race with my sister. I had my goal, my “why” and accountability nets in place. However, during this race things got very difficult for number of reasons. The trails were overgrown, aid stations weren’t exactly where the map had indicated, and I had a blister the size of a small orange on my foot. But it was during all of this, that I realized my “why” needed to change. It wasn’t because my first “why” hadn’t been strong to start with; it just needed to evolve and deepen.
When achieving your goal gets hard, your “why” may be challenged. Before you give up, I urge you to take the time to reflect and consider whether you might need to change or deepen your “why.”
What to Do When you Reach your Goal?
Create a new one! You’ve come this far, so why stop now? Don’t abandon the pursuit of growth and improvement just because you’ve reached your goal. Setting new goals is a great way to keep bettering yourself, and you might even inspire others along the way.
I believe that taking all of these preliminary steps will greatly increase your chances of success when tackling your goals for the New Year. But ultimately, the rest is up to you. I hope these tips can help you approach your goals differently and increase your odds of success.
For more resources, check out the free downloadable goal work sheet at the link below:
https://www.terraindog.com/pages/goal-sheet
Don’t miss Terrain D.O.G.’s New Year’s giveaway! Enter for a chance to win this awesome giveaway prize with a retail value of $880! The giveaway opens on Dec. 27th. The winner will be chosen on January 10th, 2024. Follow the link below to enter:
https://www.terraindog.com/pages/new-years-dog-gear-giveaway
Written by Morgan Hershberger