How to Keep Your New Year's Resolutions
It's with the best of intentions that drives so many people to announce changes they plan to make in the new year. Weight loss usually leads the list, but a host of other goals are not far behind. Quitting a bad habit or getting organized or achieving better health all make the list. It's an honorable and astute thing to do to make a new year better than the last one, but how often do people stick to their resolutions? As it turns out, less than half are on target with their new goals after only six months.
According to Time Magazine, the resolutions most broken include losing weight and getting fit, quitting smoking, eating healthier, spending more time with family, reducing stress and volunteering, to name a few.
Because the end result of most resolutions means improving one's life, it is important to find success with the goal before frustration enters the picture and douses the enthusiasm. Most people who make resolutions make the mistake of taking a shotgun approach with sweeping pronouncements of what they want to accomplish. This simply doesn't work. A more measured approach, complete with milestones, will promise results and real positive change.
Improving the Balance Sheet
An example of a financial goal that would help millions of Americans is achieving a reduction, or the total elimination, of credit card balances. A general, non-specific resolution of paying down debt, or paying off debt, is unlikely to result is a lot of success. A better way to find happiness in the new year is to determine exactly what amount you will allocate to those debt payments each month. If the decision is to pay a hundred or two hundred dollars a month, the result will be a concrete plan for eliminating a balance strategically.
Saving more or spending less are goals that can be undertaken in the same way. A vague resolution to achieve either of these financial goals provides no roadmap to their achievement. A far better first step to earning more money might be to decide on how many resumes to send out each week. Asking for a raise in your current job might be another actionable step to increasing income.
A resolution to spend less money may fall flat as the goal has no parameters and is like a rudderless ship. Taking extra measures to cut grocery bills, use more coupons, shop for bulk items or pre-plan meals may be a good starting point. Cutting out wasted expenses, like that extra $5 dollar coffee drink every other day might help also. Combine those spending cuts with specific goals to save that money and more every month
— putting a dollar amount goal on the amount to save — and you have a path to accomplishing two goals in the new year.
Medical research proves that happiness is good for your health. One study found that people who were generally happy were 20 percent less likely than unhappy people to develop heart disease. Achieving some goals in the new year can have even greater benefits than just saving more money or eliminating a credit card balance; it can make you feel better and live a more healthy life from that year forward.