Healthy New Year's Resolutions: How To Make Them And How To Keep Them

“New year, new me!” Does this phrase sound familiar to you? Every year millions of us make new year’s resolutions but it’s thought around 80% of us fail to keep them. Often, despite our best intentions, we create unrealistic resolutions and don’t put the proper support in place. That’s why, we at LycaHealth, want to help you create healthy new year’s resolutions you can achieve in 2022. 

What Are The Most Popular New Year’s Resolutions?

A YouGov poll showed that health goals dominated the 2021 new year’s resolutions list. This is the second year in a row that health and fitness have been the most popular new year’s resolutions.  

The top ten most popular new year’s resolutions are: 

1. Doing more exercise, either for weight loss or general fitness
2. Losing weight
3. Improving diet
4. Saving more money
5. Spending time with family 
6. Pursuing a career ambition 
7. Decorating/renovating the home
8. Taking up a new hobby
9. Limiting time on social media 
10. Drinking less alcohol 

How To Choose The Right New Years Resolutions For Yourself 

There are two important parts of a new year’s resolution: to be both meaningful and doable. Choosing a new year’s resolution that is attainable and means something to you will help keep motivation up. An easy goal that doesn’t mean much to you, will be easy to put off and forget about. On the other hand, an unattainable goal that’s important to you can just leave you feeling frustrated and feeling negative about yourself, 

When making a new years resolution, you should ask yourself a few questions, such as:

• Have you chosen this resolution because it’s something you want? Or is it based on what someone else has suggested or you think society expects? If it’s something you want, you’re more likely to work for it
• Is this goal specific? Vague goals are hard to achieve and easy to ignore 
• Do you have a plan for how you can achieve this goal? When there is a plan, you can see the aim

A health assessment can help you understand your body to make more informed choices for health-based new year’s resolution. 

How To Create A Plan For Your New Year’s Resolutions

Naturally, the right plan will depend on the type of new year’s goal you’re setting. If you’re trying to break a habit or create a new healthy one, it can help to divide it into smaller parts. This makes it easier to understand the goal and make a plan for it.

For example, if you’re trying to spend less time on social media it can help to consider the motivation behind using social media. This can help you understand what you get from using social media so frequently. It could be you check social media because you feel alone and it makes you feel more connected. This helps you see what you’re looking for in the bad habit, in this case, connection. You could replace the habit with texting a friend, calling a family member, or finding community activities to feel more involved. 

If you’re building a new habit, it’s also important to make sure you can find a way to enjoy it. You may want to build an exercise routine, but if you’re a night owl who chooses to get up at 5 am for a run… Well, you might find your motivation runs out very quickly. Instead, you need to look at what you want from your resolution. Do you want to feel more flexible? Stronger? Have more stamina for playing with your children? 

All of this can help you keep your motivation up and make more practical choices. If you want to improve flexibility, you might prefer yoga classes. If you’re trying to rehabilitate an old injury, physiotherapy might be more helpful. 

How To Stay Motivated 

Twelve months is a long time, so it’s natural if your motivation might wane throughout the year, which is why it is important to try and turn your resolutions into habits. This way they’re built into your routine and become part of your daily life. 

It’s often recommended to limit your new year’s resolutions. It can be tempting to fill pages and pages with resolutions, but this can make it daunting and difficult to stick to and quite unrealistic. Instead, it makes more sense to choose a small number of resolutions that mean a lot to you. By focusing on a small number of resolutions, you can take the time to establish new patterns and behaviours without getting overwhelmed.

Motivation is also why setting up plans for how to achieve your goals is so critical. It’s natural for your motivation levels to change. You shouldn’t be hard on yourself if some days you feel less motivated than others. Having a proper plan in place will help make it so you can achieve your goals, even when you’re not feeling that enthusiastic about it. 

What To Do If You Break A New Years’ Resolution

The new year is a great time to reflect on the previous year and look at where you’d like to continue growing. However, that doesn’t mean it’s the only time you can start building new habits. If you break your new year’s resolution, you can begin again. You should focus resolutions on changes you want to make for yourself long-term and understand there may be setbacks.

At LycaHealth, we offer a range of support from physical health support through our private GP services to mental health support. Get in touch to see how we can support you on your 2022 journey.