New Year, New You? Forget That! Here's How to Make Habits Stick

Say what you will about New Year’s resolutions, but there’s a lot of power in fresh starts. New Year resolutions get a bad rep mostly because people put too much pressure on themselves to succeed at too many things at a time, and once the New Year’s hype has come and gone, the resolutions are left in the dust, along with the hopes and dreams we had of achieving them.

I fall prey to this a lot. I would have my brand new planner for the new year; a blank slate to start anew and become the person I envisioned in my daydreams. Wake early, meditate, work out, eat five servings of vegetables, drink three liters of water, read, floss, and sleep by 10pm being a few of the many habits I saw myself fulfilling from the moment the calendar page read Jan 1. However, the instant I failed at one of them, I despaired and thought myself a failure, then gave up the entire pursuit altogether. Sound familiar?