5 ways to actually keep your resolutions

Friday Fixations will be back next week + my free New Year’s Meditation Challenge starts Monday

It’s that time of year. Millions of us are making New Year’s resolutions. And by February, the vast majority of us will have bailed. It’s an annual boom and bust cycle that is terrible for our motivation and self-esteem.

That’s the bad news.

The good news is there are evidence-based ways to make habit formation easier and therefore more successful.

Here are five:

1. Start small.

Make starting the habit so easy that there’s no resistance. For meditation, you can start with one minute a day. For exercise, instead of resolving to “run every morning,” you can start by resolving to “put on running shoes and go outside.”

2. Be flexible.

If you’re too rigid or perfectionistic, you’re more likely to give up when setbacks inevitably arise. One useful slogan is: “daily-ish.”

3. Try “habit stacking.”

This involves identifying one of your existing habits—something you never miss—and tacking the new habit onto it. For example, "After I have my morning coffee, I will meditate for two minutes."

4. Optimize your environment.

If you want to exercise more, keep workout clothes or equipment easily accessible. For healthier eating, keep nutritious snacks at eye level and treats out of sight.

5. Harness the “fresh start effect.”

Research shows people are more likely to take action toward self-improvement following a temporal landmark such as the start of a new year, birthday, or even the beginning of a new week.

On the pod today, I share these and other tips for keeping your New Year’s resolutions. It’s a summation of everything I’ve learned about habits over the last decade. Click to listen or watch.

Speaking of habits, if you’re looking to boot up, restart, or revivify your meditation habit, I’m launching a free, 7-day meditation challenge, starting on Monday. If you’re already a subscriber, there’s nothing more you need to do. The meditations will land in your inbox first thing in the morning. And then, several evenings during the week, I’ll do live video check-ins.

P.S. Friday Fixations (my weekly email where I share books, music, movies etc. I’m digging, plus one online video of nearly zero cultural merit) will be back next week. If you missed my year-end Friday Fixations, here’s a link.

Paid subscribers can comment on this and all my other posts, have access to live AMAs with me, and below have access to a podcast cheatsheet with key takeaways, time-stamped highlights + full transcript.