Maintain those goals you set for 2016
By Lauren Paulsen, Senior Columnist
We are more than halfway through January, so it’s a good time to take another look at our New Year’s Resolutions. Have you been keeping up with them? Or, like the majority of people, is your resolve petering out as the end of the month comes closer?
Keeping a goal can be difficult, but it’s not impossible. A big key in managing to accomplish your goals is to create new habits. When you first start forming a habit, it can be really hard to keep up with it so because it has not yet become one. This seems pretty obvious, but it’s something to keep in mind when you are trying to form new habits. The more you work on these habits, the easier it becomes to do them. Sometimes it’s all about mental and muscle memory. The way things become habits is that our body or our mind just gets used to doing them automatically—to the point where we feel strange or antsy if we don’t.
An easy example is eating healthier. When you first cut out junk foods from your diet, it’s hard to resist eating them because your body is craving the sugars and fats it is used to. Keeping a strong will is necessary, and as time progresses your body will adjust and won’t crave those chips or chocolate anymore. It’s that initial leap that is the hardest.
I’m here to tell you that you can achieve those goals that you set at the beginning of the year. All you need to do is persevere and get over that initial hump. Once you’ve formed your new habit, it is a much smoother ride to achieving your goal.
