5 Tips for Achieving Your New Year’s Health Resolutions

Every year, millions of people make New Year’s resolutions to improve their health in some way, from losing weight to developing better exercise habits. Unfortunately, more than 80% of these health-related goals go by the wayside within the first few weeks of January. To better your chance of reaching your goals, MD Now offered these proven tips to turn your New Year’s health resolutions into results.

Go for the Right Resolutions for the Right Reasons

When choosing your health resolutions, it’s important to consider what matters to you, rather than picking to please other people. Experts say that personally embracing a goal makes you more likely to achieve it. Whether it’s starting a New Year’s diet or changing bad lifestyle habits, only go for the goals that mean the most to you.

Make Your Goals Gettable

If you fail to plan, then plan to fail. You need to break down your goal into a series of steps to give you a sense of control and make your goal achievable. One of the most frequently failed goals is vaguely resolving to lose weight. This goal is too general and doesn’t spell out the singular steps to reach it. You’ll have a greater chance of losing weight if you get specific about the goal and plan a schedule of new year health tips to adopt each week.

Treat Yourself to Occasional Treats

Ironically, one of the best ways to stick to your New Year’s diet is by regularly rewarding yourself with a day off from your healthy eating and exercise plan. You need to incorporate an occasional day off into your schedule for both your physical and mental well-being to sustain your goals long term.

Announce Your Health Resolutions Loudly and Proudly

Tell people about your New Year’s resolutions to make yourself accountable. Explain your goals for each week, along with the new year health tips you’ll take to reach them. Once you’ve made your plans public, you won’t want to risk failing in front of your family and friends, so this serves as a major motivator.

Forgive Yourself for Minor Mess-Ups

Realize that nobody’s perfect and that everyone suffers slip-ups while working toward their goals. When this happens, it’s much better to accept the mistake and then continue on toward your health resolutions, rather than beat yourself up and give up completely. When you focus on progress instead of perfection, you’ll each be able to reach your goals healthfully and happily.