How to Keep a New Year's Resolution

New Year's Eve is almost here! Time to make your 2009 new year's resolutions. Student reporter Kristy Zhen offers a few tips to help you meet your new goals.

The most popular New Year’s resolutions include staying fit, losing weight, helping others, becoming a better person, managing money, and ending bad habits, but unless you are actually deeply concerned about these things, it may be hard to reach your goal. Here are five steps to making—and keeping—your New Year’s resolution.

Step 1: Choose a goal that you care about a lot and think is very important. It’s better to focus on achieving one goal at a time, so think, would you rather lose weight or volunteer in your community?

Step 2: Create a plan for yourself. Be reasonable with timing. Think about the little steps you have to take before reaching your goal. Focus on the smaller goals/steps so you don’t overwhelm yourself if the larger goal is ambitious. Say you chose to lose weight. Start off with eating healthier. Next month start exercising regularly. In the month after that, you may want to start monitoring your weight. Also keep in mind things to do when you are tempted to give up.

Step 3: Set up some type of reminder. You can use email alerts or stick a note onto your mirror to constantly remind yourself. It would also help if you did something regularly so that eventually it becomes natural. If you choose to volunteer more, go to the same soup kitchen every Saturday morning. If you choose to manage your money, record every time you spend money (even if it’s a bagel you buy every morning).

Step 4: Get help from others. If you tell your family and friends what your goal is, they can help you stay motivated and re-motivate you if you get off track. Also, if you chose to end a bad habit or become healthier, there are doctors and counselors who can create plans for you and offer professional help.

Step 5: Don’t give up. If you fail or fall off track, start over or continue to strive towards your goal. Who says you can’t create a goal in the spring? Figure out why you failed, and then change your plan. You can reach your goal if you work hard for it, and the reward is beyond satisfaction.

~By student reporter Kristy Zhen

Photos: The Associated Press