With the new year beginning, many people take time to reflect on the past year and set goals for the new year to come. It’s a usual practice to set a New Year’s resolutions for yourself with common ones being to exercise more, be more organized, and to travel more.

With all of these wonderful goals set in place, many people feel a sense of excitement about life and their future in the upcoming year. It seems that setting New Year’s resolutions becomes more common year after year. However, many people comment on how their plans have stopped only a few months into the new year, or even sooner.

A perfect example of this is shown in research performed by Strava which according to over 800 million user-logged activities in 2019, that most people are likely to give up their New Year’s resolutions in 2020 by January 19th.

So, I guess the real question to ask yourself is: How can I take my New Year’s resolution and turn it into a more achievable goal, and eventually, a habit?

Some tips provided by Inc. are to first turn your resolution into a more specific measurable goal. This many include setting numerical values to goals such as giving yourself a number or time measurements to work towards.

Another helpful tip is to make sure your environment is not distracting you from reaching your goal. This may mean clearing out a space in your home to exercise or creating a orderly, clean work environment in hopes of becoming more organized.

Actively measuring your progress with an app or by another means is another helpful way to turn that faulty resolution into a sound habit. Measuring your progress is helpful not only to keep you motivated, but it also allows yourself to make mistakes along the way. Learning from your actions can be a valuable lesson, too.

So this year let’s transform our New Year’s resolutions into lifestyles by implementing these tips. It is not enough to make a resolution and hope for outcomes. But, it is enough to create a goal and a plan of action to achieve it.