Why Small Daily Tweaks Make More Sense than Big Resolutions

At this time of year, a lot of people tend to make massive new-year’s resolutions, but all too often they fail to stick to them. Rather than making huge new year’s resolutions, that will likely overwhelm you, why not make a simple change this year – one that you have a chance of succeeding at.

Resolving to make small changes every day to improve your life is less overwhelming than setting a huge, difficult goal that is doomed to failure. If you want to lose weight, resolve to make one new, good habit each month that will help with that. If you want to save up for something expensive, set a daily goal of spending less money on unnecessary things, and then another goal of saving a small amount each week – watch that money mount up.

Only eight percent of people keep big new year’s resolutions, but people who form new habits tend to make them last longer.

Everyone Has Willpower

A lot of people think that they don’t have willpowr, but Dr. Tim Pychl, a professor of psychology at Carleton University says that if you form healthy habits, then you will make progress towards your goals, and progress fuels motivation. Yuo do have willpower – even if you feel like you don’t – the problem is that for many people that willpower is invested in negative habits. Breaking those habits is the key to success.

Lay out a concrete plan for what you want to achieve over the next several months, and identify strong, simple and clear changes that will make this possible – things like ‘drink more water’, or ‘stop eating chocolate on the way to work’ will help with weight loss, for example, and these are measurable changes that will keep you motivated.