The new year symbolizes a perfect time to restart, create a fresh beginning, and make a goal or two towards a “new you.” While many people set New Year’s resolutions for themselves, few reach their New Year’s goals by the end of the year.
80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by February, and by the end of the year, only 8% of people will have achieved their resolutions.
What goes into making the 8% successful in achieving their New Year’s goals? Is it about making meaningful connections or as easy as committing a plan to paper?
If you’re looking for effective ways to stick to your New Year’s goals, then take these next four tactics to heart.
- Set broad goals. If you intend to make your New Year’s goals last throughout the entirety of the year, it is best to make a resolution that is more broad than specific. This is the type of goal that you will be able to grow into and can be tackled slowly. If you take slow steps, you will have the sense of small rewards and knowing you’re on the right track. If you begin something new too quickly and fail, it is much easier to give up. Taking the goal slow makes the process more realistic and puts you on track towards a long-term change.
- Change your mindset. Another key component to setting achievable New Year’s goals is thinking of something you’d like to add to your life instead of something you’d like to get rid of. When individuals think of something to get rid of, they’ll often feel deprived of that “something” and their subconscious will think of it as a negative act. Instead, think of adding something to replace that “something.”
For example, if you’d like to eat less unhealthy food, think of it as adding more healthy food to your diet. Eventually healthy food will slowly replace the unhealthy food and the same goal will be accomplished. Overall, it will be easier on your mind since it is easier to add a behavior than to end one.
- Share your New Year’s goals with others. Make sure to share your New Year’s goals with at least one friend or family member. It may be intimidating sharing a personal goal with someone else, knowing you might not reach it, but when you share your goals, others are likely to check up on you and hold you accountable. New Year’s resolutions are easy to ignore when it’s strictly a promise to yourself, but much more challenging to disregard once a friend is involved.
- Be repetitive. Lastly, a key to achieving your New Year’s goals is to create habits through repetition. Assign small benchmarks like a place and time to complete tasks that chip away at achieving your big picture goals.
For example, if you currently shower around the same time every evening, decide to work out for 30 minutes before you take your shower. If you leave work around 5:00 p.m. each day make a point to go to the gym directly after work. Incorporating your goals into your everyday life and schedule can increase the chances of sticking to them long term.
At Society, we encourage our employees to develop and set goals all year-round; there’s no need to wait until the new year to practice healthy habits. In addition, we commit to our employee’s personal development through company-paid insurance classes where insurance designations can be earned. Society’s College of Insurance also allows employees to continue their education while advancing within the company. Our organization is fully invested in growing internal talent, which is why we offer tuition reimbursement to employees currently in or returning to college. Our future is their future—and we believe our employees make the biggest difference.
If you’re looking for additional tactics to motivate and retain employees, consider reading our recent blog post on “Nine Pillars of Employee Engagement.”
