How to Sustain Your New Year Resolution

It is the beginning of a fresh new year! As with all other years, I cannot help but start to make new year resolutions. There is something about the beginning of a new year that begs us to re-think our lives. It is as if we have been given a fresh new piece of paper to re-draw our lives. So we make so many grand promises to ourselves. The challenge is, how to we sustain our efforts in them?

For this new year, my resolution is to write a 250-word blog post every week. It does not sound like a big resolution, right? I have been faithfully keeping to this resolution for the past few weeks now, but I can feel my resolve faltering at times. Here are my own thoughts on how to sustain my own efforts at starting a new habit. 

Tip 1: Remind yourself why you are doing it

If you have a very strong “why”, you do not need to worry about the “what”. You have to have a strong reason why you are making such a promise to yourself. When you know the reason clearly in your mind, then you will find ways to do it. 

For me, starting the writing habit has been a long-term wish of mine. I wish that I have the discipline to just continue writing, and maybe, someday, I will make use of my writing skills to become a writer. As the saying goes, “Mighty oaks from little acorns grow”. I am planting my little acorn now, and watering it lovingly every week. Hopefully, it will grow up to become a big oak tree some day! 

Tip 2: Start Small 

For me, I am beginning in a very small way. I use a free platform (blogspot) to start a blog. I commit to myself to write only once a week (and not like every day or 3 times a week). And each time I write only a 250 word article. For a start, I also commit to only do this for a month. 

By starting small like this, I know that the success rates are much higher. Every week when I achieve my goal, I feel good at myself, and that sustains my efforts. I learnt this tip from reading the Scott Adams book, “How to Fail at Everything and Still Win Big”. 

Tip 3: Celebrate Success! 

Next week will be the fourth time I achieve my goal of writing at least once a week. I promised myself that if I do this consecutively for 4 weeks, I will reward myself. 

I am looking forward to treating myself with something nice. Haha, it tickles me that this little trick that I use on my kids work on myself too. It helps to have something to look forward to.