5 Tips to Make Your Goals Stick
You have reflected and thought through the goals you want to set for this year. Now how do you make sure you can actually implement them? Here’s 5 tips that will help make your goals stick:
Stack Your Activities
One effective technique for implementing change is “stacking,”. This involves forming a new habit by bundling it with an existing behavior. For example, if you wanted to incorporate a short mindfulness/meditation routine into your mornings, you may pour yourself your usual coffee or tea and then meditate for five minutes while the drink cools, before drinking it.
Since you already do that one action every day, it can serve as a cue for the new habit to stick along with it.
Think Positively
If we think more positively about the changes we want to make, we’re more likely to be motivated to go through with enacting our goals. This could be as simple as rephrasing the way we look at our resolutions. Instead of saying to ourselves, “I will quit __” or “I will avoid __,” we can say, “I will start to do __.”
A 2017 study focused on the differences in goal mindset and found that 60% of those who embraced what the researchers call an “approach goal” succeeded. Compared to 47% of those who had “avoidance goals.” Framing our resolutions towards positive outcomes are shown to be more successful.
Recognize that road bumps may happen and expect them ahead of time. There will be days where we won’t be as motivated to work on our goals, and that’s okay. If we plan ahead to give ourselves permission and space to take breaks, we will feel okay with taking the necessary time to rest and relax before resuming our efforts towards our goals again.
Keep a Journal
It may help us to better visualize and keep track of the changes we want to make if we are writing it all down. If you feel like this will be helpful for you, keeping a journal is a great way to hold yourself accountable for your progress with your goals. Having a journal can help us monitor how we are feeling about our goals, what we want to focus on next and how we can adjust our goals if we need to along the way.
Check-In With Yourself
We will find the most success with our resolutions if we are honest and kind to ourselves during the process. You could check in with yourself about your goals through a journal, but also by just setting time aside to reflect every day, week or month. Checking in with ourselves is an important part of pursuing our goals because it allows us to take a step back and really evaluate how we can best create positive change.
