This is how you succeed with your New Year's resolution
We have now left 2022 behind us and are entering 2023 together. During New Year's Eve, many people make a New Year's resolution to themselves, which can be about anything, but a common New Year's resolution is to start working out. This is something that we think is a lot of fun and we hope that we can accompany you towards your goals this year, regardless of whether it's about getting in more everyday exercise, running that race you've been thinking about, reaching new distances, hiking that one the trail you dreamed of or start working out again. A study from the universities of Stockholm and Linköping showed that the majority of Swedes keep their New Year's resolutions. This study also showed that more people succeeded in achieving their goals that were about achieving something than those who promised themselves to stop something. Therefore, we want to encourage you to set intermediate goals and an end goal so that you can succeed in keeping your New Year's resolution. If your New Year's resolution for this year is to, for example, run the Stockholm marathon, then it is beneficial to plan your training in different stages with different distance and time goals.
We have collected some tips for you to succeed in achieving your goal for 2023:
- Set clear and concrete goals as these lead to their achievement to a greater extent. So instead of, for example, setting the goal "start running more", you should set a more concrete goal such as running every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday.
- Sub-goals. If you have an ambitious promise for 2023, it's good if you break it down into different more affordable milestones that you then create a plan for that leads to the bigger goal.
- Tell us about your promise. A great way to improve your chances of successfully keeping your New Year's resolution is to tell people about it. It is also a good idea to set a common goal with a friend or a few friends so you can support and encourage each other.
- Follow-up. Another way to succeed in keeping the New Year's resolution is to put reminders in your calendar to follow up on how the resolution is going, for example at the end of each month. If you get off track, the reminders can also give you an opportunity to restart the promise.
- Tie a new habit to an ingrained habita. As everyone knows, it can be difficult to get a new habit into everyday life, but one trick is to tie the new habit to a habit that is already established. For example, if you want to incorporate more running into your everyday life, it could be that you go for a run after brushing your teeth, which is already an established habit.
- Reward. Change is not always easy and it is therefore important that you celebrate your successes, every step you have taken towards your goal. Celebrate your successes with something that you enjoy and make you happy, something that you can look forward to.