Every year, we take time to reflect and take note of the aspects of our lives we’d like to improve in the coming year. For some, that’s regarding physical health, a spiritual journey, making career moves, or establishing and/or fostering a family. With the increased focus on mental health, it’s natural for there to be an increase in mental health related resolutions! Now, it’s fine and jim-dandy that we state the goals, but how do we follow through? Here, I’ll guide you through my top three tricks to help you stick to your New Year’s Resolution(s), and any goal you have really!

2024 is gonna be your year!

Read the headline again - humor me here. How many times have you said it before? Now how many times has it actually worked out that way?

For a lot of people, they go into the new year with the best of intentions, but after a few weeks, they fall back into their usual, comfortable behaviors. Why is that? Well, breaking a habit or establishing a new one is HARD! While it does take time - I already know you’ve heard the whole “it takes 21 days to build a habit” - but it also takes a great deal of intention, forethought, and mental energy.

So when push comes to shove and you get back into your normal routine with work, family, and other obligations, it’s actually human nature to fall into autopilot, which naturally, doesn’t include the new behavior yet.

How do I get past that?

You have to override your autopilot system to rewire your brain - think of it like a computer: your computer is set to operate a certain way when you press a button. Right now, your brain is hardwired to operate the way you’ve been operating for X amount of time. Well, with a computer, if you want to change the function of a button or system, you have to rewire or reprogram the system, and probably restart the computer so it solidifies the changes.

For your brain, the rewiring is the intention you have to put into changing your behaviors. You have to CHOOSE the new behavior every single time, which will take effort, thought, and mental energy. Now, for it to stick, the computer may need a system reboot - your brain’s reboot is time.

The difference between you and a computer? Your brain’s rewiring isn’t as ‘simple’ and will require you to overcome the natural desire to go into autopilot. How do we do that? Here are a few tips and tricks to help ensure long-lasting success while you and your brain work toward these goals!

#1: Break it down

I’m not talkin about dancing, but if that helps you, I won’t judge! I hear so many people come up with great goals for themselves, but where things fall apart is the goal is broad and feels unattainable from where they are currently. It feels like you’re standing at the base of mountain and wanting to be at the top, with no plan for anything in between. This is likely to set you up for feeling like a failure for not reaching your goal. Needless to say, that feeling sucks!

So, you want to break the primary goal into several smaller ones - I reference them as stepping stones. No matter what your goal is, there are several tangible steps you can take to get there gradually. Here’s an example:

Your main goal is to journal every day, but you’re not used to it because, well, you don’t do it currently. So here’s a breakdown:

• Week one: set aside a specific time and space to journal - ideally somewhere you’ll see it daily

• Week two: create a timer for the journal time you decided and simply sit in that spot

• Week three: write for one minute each day the timer goes off - yes, literally 60 seconds

• Week four: Increase the time to three minutes

• Week five: Increase the time to five minutes

So on and so forth. Beyond week three would be entirely up to you and what works for you, but weeks one, two, and three are creating the foundation and making your brain actively think about it. Have you ever heard “out of sight, out of mind”? We’re trying to do the opposite - force yourself to see it and be exposed to it so it crosses your mind more readily. This helps establish the foundation for the behavior before introducing the behavior itself.

#2: Outcome vs. Process

Oftentimes, goals are identified by the outcome - make X progress in Y amount of time. For some, that works just fine and it’s rewarding and all that good stuff. But for others, it makes the day-to-day very…dull. Insignificant even. That’s what can make it incredibly difficult to stick to your goal(s). When the motivation is for the outcome, the time it takes to get there feels slow as all hell! But, there is a way to shift your mindset a bit that can help you!

What I just described is an outcome-focused mindset - there’s nothing inherently wrong with it, but it doesn’t work for everyone, especially in regards to maintaining motivation over longer periods of time. What you want to do is shift to a process-focused mindset - you know, what those quotes are always talkin about:

“It’s about the journey not the destination” - yea, you know what I’m talking about!

As cheesy as it can feel, there’s truth in that. The end-goal may be of utmost importance, but once you get there, that’s where maintenance begins. How do we know how to maintain? By investing in the process just as much as the outcome. This is especially true for goals that pertain to your health, career, relationships, spirituality…do you see where I’m going with this?

Literally everything!

Just give it some thought! :)

#3: Visualize your success & Buy Into It!

This point ties in with the previous one about a process-focused mindset - how many times have you made a goal for yourself and found yourself questioning if you can achieve it? Ready for another one of those quotes? Here ya go:

“Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right”

Your brain processes the thoughts you give time and space to - if those are more inherently negative thoughts, your internal narrative will be more inherently negative, and the same goes for if they’re more positive or optimistic.

But what does this have to do with goals?

If you don’t buy in to your ability to meet the goal, self-doubt and lack of motivation are gonna creep in with everything they have. So what do you do about it? I encourage my clients to visualize yourself, not only meeting the goal, but doing the things it takes to get there. You remember those stepping stones we talked about earlier - they apply here too!

Visualization uses a separate part of your brain, allowing it to process the information differently than words, so mixed with creating an internal narrative where you are successful at various points of the process, you’ll find yourself buying into it more and motivation will naturally increase. How cool is that?!

Take the time to write out the narrative, then close your eyes and visualize yourself at every step of the way. This doesn’t mean we’ll only experience success, but that’s where the process-focused mindset comes in - there’s no failure, only lessons on how not to approach it or how to approach it more effectively for you.

Conclusion

No matter if you participate in New Year’s resolutions or set goals for yourself, it’s important to set yourself for success as much as possible - you deserve to achieve your goals! While these tricks won’t automatically grant you success (I wish!), they can certainly help you build healthy habits in a sustainable way.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and how you apply these tricks to your personal goals!

~ Catherine