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The end of the year is the time to evaluate the past year and make some New Year’s resolutions: do you have a plan?
A plan is fundamental to clear to yourself what your New Year’s Resolutions are and which steps are necessary in order to achieve this goal.
How many times we took a decision and we failed?
Most of the time the problem is that we make resolutions but not a plan to achieve them.
In this PDF guide you will learn how to choose a challenging and achievable resolution and how to build a plan with the steps to achieve it.
Please note: Signing up for this course will automatically add you to the Ketonetherlands email list.
New year’s Resolutions: how to choose yours
In order to build a plan for our New Year’s resolutions you have first of all clear to yourself what you want.
Look back to the past year.
What are you proud of? You still want the same things?
What would you change?
Decide what to let go/keep/ improve.
Can you say what’s your biggest dream? What do you want for yourself?
Is it a new job, an healthier lifestyle or maybe learn a new skill?
Put everything on paper and find the general goal or goals for the next year.
How many resolutions?
We want many things, that’s human.
It’s fundamental to choose only few resolutions: I would say maximum 3, especially if they are big ones.
In fact, If you choose too many, without building up your habits, you will end up being very frustrated and lose motivation.
Characteristics of a resolution:
A resolution must have some features to be one.
Challenging: No challenge = No Change. We need to push ourself to improve.
Achievable. A resolution must be challenging but attainable. Don’t choose a goal too far away from your lifestyle or not sustainable in the long run.
Specific and measurable: You have to quantify your goal.
Don’t set a goal like: “I will drink more water” or “I will go to the gym more often”.
Try with: “I will drink 2l per day”or “I will go to the gym 3 times per week”.
Remember: your resolution doesn’t have to happen overnight.
Set a goal and work for it. You are seeking progress not perfection.
Try to insert small changes everyday.
For example: If your goal is to wake up at 5 a.m., move the alarm 15 minutes earlier everyday and build your habit.
How to build up a plan for the New’s Year Resolutions
Now that you have your resolutions put them in writing.
Remember: they must be 3 tops.
For each resolution you will write:
STEPS: A list of the steps and intentions you will do in order to achieve and maintain it.
The steps have the same characteristics of the main resolution: challenging, achievable, specific and measurable.
Remember that they don’t have to happen overnight but you can improve with small progress everyday.
You can always change them in the process.
PROGRESS: The way and the interval you want to track the progress.
Tracking is necessary to see if the steps are working.
It’s up to you decide the way and the interval according to your goals.
EVALUATION: The interval you want to evaluate these steps.
Define the interval in which you want to sit and analyse the progress.
The interval doesn’t have to be too brief or too long.
I would say every 2 weeks or every month is a good interval.
The goal of this analysis/evaluation is to understand if the steps you chose are helping you to achieve your main goal.
If they are not helping consider to remove them, make them more or less challenging. You can also introduce new steps.
Questions you have to ask for the evaluation:
Are you happy of the results?
These steps are really helping to achieve the main goal?
Are these steps sustainable? Can I go on for another month?
My New Year’s Resolution plan
As an example, I will put here below my NY Resolution.
The 2020 was an hard year but there are several things I am proud of.
Specifically, this year I:
Started to follow a ketogenic lifestyle
Exercised many days per week (almost the whole year)
Opened this blog
Got promoted
Quit smoking
These are the things I am taking with me in the new year.
I will keep following a keto diet, working on my blog, I will work hard to keep my Manager position and I have no intention to start smoking again.
There are things that I can improve: My approach to the keto diet and the to the exercising.
In the next year I want to focus even more on my physical wellness.
My big resolution in 2021 will be: Reach 60 kg.
To achieve this big resolution I have defined 4 specific steps:
Diet (Which diet? How many days per week? Is there a cheat meal?)
Track Macros (Every meal?One time per day?)
Exercise (How? When? How many days per week?)
Drink more water (How many liters/glasses/bottles per day?)
I will also track the progress every week with the scale and every month with the pictures.
Additionally, together with the pictures, I will do an analysis to see if the steps I chose are suitable to reach my goal.
This Resolution is a very big one because I never reached 60 kilos.
Currently, I am slightly above 70 and even if I already lost 10 kilos in the past, these 10 kilos will be harder.
Harder because I am not so overweight anymore.
Therefore this will be my only resolution this year.
Below you can read my plan.
Small note: Some steps that I chose can be indeed some resolution.
For somebody, in fact, working out 5 days per week or drink 3l per day can be big steps.
Of course this depends in which position of the journey you are now.
Hence, don’t compare your goal with other’s goal.
Remember: a step must be challenging: we have always push beyond your limits in order to improve and achieve our goals.
To sum up, a plan is fundamental if want to achieve your New Year’s Resolutions or any goal you have in mind.
UPDATE: March 2021. It’s going good. Some weeks, I am even exercising 6 times per week. For more details, read my morning routine during the lockdown.
