7 Tips to Keep Your Momentum Going After the New Year Hype Dies

Did you know only 8% of people who make New Year’s Resolutions are successful? It’s easy to get caught up in the New Year’s resolution hype only to find yourself in the same old habits just weeks later. Anything seems possible after a taking a week off for the holidays, but once you get back to work your best intentions don’t always hold up. Well, we’re here help prevent you from becoming like the 92% of people who fail at reaching their New Year’s Goals. So how do you keep the momentum going?

Here are our 7 tips to keep your good habits going after the New Year’s hype dies: ​

Outline Your Plans
One of the main flaws with a New Year’s Resolution is a lack of planning. It’s easy to make blanket statements at the end of a year about what you will do better in the new year, but it’s almost impossible to achieve a goal without a plan. While your motivation may be dwindling, set aside some time to plan your goal and create an outline. Build in checkpoints and mini-goals to make the goal feel more achievable. If you have committed to write a blog once a week, schedule writing blocks into your calendar or write extra at the start of the year so when you fall behind you have a bucket to chose from. Set a goal for each week or month and celebrate hitting those smaller goals.

Create a Visual Tracker
Sometimes it’s helpful to be able to see a visual depiction of your progress. Grab a piece of graph paper and draw out a tracker for your goal. We have one team member who is working on paying off her credit card debt. She drew out a box for each $100 of debt she has and colors them in as she goes. If you have a goal to send 3 sales emails each day, create a tracker where you can check off those emails each day. When you see a sheet full of check marks you’ll feel fully accomplished!

Change Your Expectations
Things don’t change overnight and your bad habits won’t disappear when the calendar changes. It’s time to reset your expectations to include a few set backs. You may have resolved to implement time blocking but are still finding yourself distracted by your emails when you’re supposed to be focused on sending invoices. It’s ok to not be perfect. Recognize your mistakes and continue working to change them. Expecting perfection is a sure recipe for failure.

Build in Rewards
As we mentioned above it’s important to celebrate your success along the way! When you create your outline, include rewards for reaching a mini goal. This can be anything (as long as it won’t break your goal). You could consider taking the team out to lunch, taking a day off or buying a new office printer for example. The point is to treat yourself and celebrate making it to a milestone!

Go Social
Sometimes the best way to keep yourself ontrack is to recruit an audience. Take advantage of your social media platforms to keep yourself accountable. Commit to updating your friends and followers daily or weekly. When we have told our followers what to expect from us, we invite accountability and accountability equals motivation.

Revisit Your Goal
If you’re on the struggle bus with your maintaining your New Year’s Resolution, it’s time to take a second look. It’s ok to admit your goal is a bit far fetched or something you aren’t actually interested in working on right now. Take this opportunity to scale back or rewrite your goal to something more in line with your current needs and expectations. It’s better to admit you made too lofty of a goal than and make an edit than it is to give up completely and not work on improvement at all.

If your New Year’s resolution involves growing your business, schedule a consultation today to learn how we can help keep you on track.