New Year, Better Me: How to break bad habits without breaking the bank

New Year’s Resolutions can mean one of two things. It can mean turning over a new leaf, and the beginning of a beautiful, inspired journey to achieving our goals. Alternatively, it can mean a guilt ridden list of habits we know we want to break, but haven’t found the motivation to kick to the curb. Unfortunately, for eight percent of us, the second option is probably the most likely. That’s the percentage of people that actually achieve their New Year’s resolutions.

Don’t think we’re here to crush your ambition. We want to help you succeed! That’s why we’re putting together “New Year, Better Me,” a series of blog posts that will help you kick-start your resolutions without having to spend a bunch of cash. 

Advertisements target determined people this time of year. Gym memberships, professional organizers, financial planners and others are ready to help people achieve their goals. While this is a good route for some people, we’re here to provide you with some minimalistic and cheap tricks that will get you closer to your target.

According to Statistic Brain, there are a few resolutions that people seem to gravitate toward every year. Getting in shape, getting organized and saving more money are all included in the top ten.

Over the next month, we’ll be providing you with tips for each of these resolutions and more. We’ll tackle each common resolution one by one and provide you with top tips and how to start working for it, how to maintain the results and how to do it without spending a lot of money.

Smart goals

To kick off the series, let’s talk about SMART goals. Have you ever heard of a SMART goal? It’s an acronym that defines how to set good goals. The letters stand for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. Setting smart goals is a positive first step when defining habits you’d like to adopt (or break!) in the new year.

Specific – Being specific when goal setting is important. Instead of just saying “I want to exercise more,” be specific about the end result you’d like to see. Try something more like, “I want to get in shape and be able to run a marathon.” This will make it much easier to measure if you’re succeeding.

Measurable – Speaking of measuring our goals, set a goal that’s easy to measure. For example, instead of saying “I want to learn to run,” set a more measurable goal like, “I want to run a 5k marathon.” Having a measurable goal will make it clear if you’re succeeding, and it’ll help you realize why you’re not succeeding and what you may need to change.

Attainable – Setting unattainable and unrealistic goals is the number one reason only eight percent of people feel successful in their New Year’s resolutions. Be honest with yourself when setting your goals. Setting an unattainable goal such as, “I want to be on a competitive running team,” when you’ve just started training in January, is setting yourself up to fail. Don’t do that! Set goals that you have the skills and ability to accomplish. Do you have the skills and ability to be a professional athlete at this point in your life? If the answer is no, don’t aim for that just yet. Work on something more attainable, then you can re-address and re-adjust your goals when you’ve achieved what you’ve set out to do.

Realistic – Be realistic when setting your goal. This takes honesty. Setting a goal such as, “I want to run the 5k marathon in September” is a good goal, but be honest with yourself about if this is achievable. Do you have the time to dedicate to training for the marathon? Do you have the resources required to achieve the goal? If you’ve been working your way down the SMART goal line, and have already worked on making your goal specific, measurable and attainable, chances are it’ll make the goal more likely to be realistic!

Timely – Finally, make sure the goal is timely. Put a timeline on your success, such as “I want to run a 5k marathon in September 2017.” This will give you a more clear vision, and will show you how much time you have to work on the goal. Creating a timely goal is important because it’s motivating.

These SMART goal tips should have you well on your way to forming some good New Year’s Resolutions. What’s your experience with New Year’s Resolutions? Have they worked for you? Follow our New Year, Better Me series for more tips on how to achieve New Year’s goals.