New Year Resolutions. They are the perfect opportunity for many of us to decide what goals we want to pursue to make this new year better than the previous one. Here are five tips to help you stay true to your new year resolutions. 

Have a Focused Goal

Don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to accomplish a long list of goals all at once. 

Rather, keep it simple with prioritizing one or two things. It is much less stressful for us when we have a specific goal in mind compared to pressuring ourselves to complete multiple resolutions. We have all experienced the struggle of following our resolutions. But staying on track may not be as hard as we think. If you do have multiple resolutions, try to focus on a couple first. Once those are finished, keep moving down the list. 

Pace Yourself

Make sure to keep a steady pace when you are doing your new year resolutions. You are not just trying to complete resolutions, but you are also trying to create a better habit. For example, if your goal is to eat less sweets, do not decide to give up all sweets immediately. Instead, ease yourself into it by maybe starting off with choosing a day that you won’t have sweets. From there you can make that two days and so on, until you are at a point where you are satisfied with the decrease of sweets intake. Remember, we have all year to accomplish our new year resolutions, not just the first couple of months.

Have Incentives

Completing our resolutions can take a bit of time, but no one said we can’t reward 

ourselves during the process. It is totally okay to give yourself incentives while completing your new year resolutions. If you have been staying on track with your diet for a while, then treat yourself to a nice dessert. If you have spent less time on your television-watching then give yourself a movie night.  When we give ourselves these small rewards we actually feel more motivated to finish our goals. 

Take a Break

You should not feel obligated to constantly have to follow your resolutions on a daily basis. It’s okay to take breaks. When we are studying for exams or doing homework, we give our ourselves mental breaks and the same principle applies when it comes to doing our resolutions. Freshman fashion merchandising major Julia Weers gives herself weekly breaks that motivate her to keep up with her resolution.

“For my new year  resolution, I went dairy free,” Weers said. “To stay inspired I have a cheat day once a week on Sundays, so I can tell myself that I can wait till Sunday if I am craving something.” 

After working hard on our resolutions, sometimes we just need to give ourselves time to rest and refresh. When we have a rested mind and body, we stay motivated with our goals. 

Write It down

This is a tip that may sound very simple and not something that most of us would think to do, but is very effective. You can even take it a step further and not just write down what your resolutions are, but the progress you have made on the way. To see that visual reminder of what your goal is and how far you’ve come towards completing it will constantly reignite that passion and motivation on why it was one of your new year resolutions in the first place.