New Year’s Resolutions. We’ve all made them, and we’ve probably all broken them at one time or another. Now that we’re 6 days into the new year, you might be holding strong to your new promise, and that’s great! But how do you plan to stay on the path for the remainder of 2022?
According to one study, most people give up on their New Year’s Resolutions by February 1st, which means a lot of empty gyms and a lot of unread books. We’ve done some of our own research on how you can better stick to your own goals, and one of the best ways to do it is through writing.
Whether or not your New Year’s Resolution has anything to do with grammar and style, writing about your goals makes you more likely to achieve them. This most likely has something to do with muscle memory. When we write our goals down, we can better remember the importance attached to them. If you’ve ever given up on a New Year’s Resolution before, it’s probably because you were overcome with temptation, or maybe you just convinced yourself that achieving your goal wasn’t really that important. Whatever the reason, writing it down might have been the thing to save it.
Today, write your New Year’s Resolution on a piece of paper, inside a journal, or even on the Notes App in your phone. Add a few sentences about why exactly you’ve decided to take on this new healthy practice or why you’re giving up a bad habit. Maybe mention what you hope to gain out of adhering to your goal and feel free to mention why it’s important to you or why it’s been difficult to follow in the past. Write about why this time will be different from prior attempts or what steps you’re going to take to keep yourself in check. Attach some emotion to this year’s New Year’s Resolution and keep it handy. That way, anytime you feel like giving up, you can go back to the time when you knew this was the right choice.
That right there is one of the great beauties of writing. It immortalizes your words so that they’re available to you at any time. Even if you keep your goals written down on a scrap of paper and tucked away in your nightstand, you’ve assigned them a level of importance that’s going to give you the strength to see them through. Next time you’re thinking about giving up, write about it. Explain why you’re feeling bogged down and why you think it’s worth going back on all your hard work so far. Write when you’re feeling a sense of pride in your consistency and give yourself even more strength to keep going.
Writing also provides a healthy outlet to give yourself a break when pushing through a New Year’s Resolution slump. Maybe you slipped and ate that piece of gluten toast you promised you’d stay away from or maybe you skipped out on a day of meditation because you just weren’t feeling it — do some writing when you’re feeling guilty and allow yourself to reset and recharge. Rather than let your mistake get the best of you, use writing to change your frame of mind and keep moving toward your ultimate goal.
Whether you consider yourself a writer or not, writing is an incredible tool that will help to keep you on the path to achieving your 2022 New Years Resolutions. Learn about all the other ways writing can change your life by signing up for Opyrus.
