New Year’s resolutions – did you make any this year? I did, but I feel like whenever I ask someone about theirs, I’m met with a scoff. I think that when people think of resolutions there’s automatically this assumption that people are all talk – and that when it comes to actually holding up the resolution, we’ll just quietly abandon these goals somewhere around mid-January and that will be that.

In 2015, my resolutions were to journal daily, to get my body back (I had gained 40 pounds through over-indulging during 2014) and to try wearing less makeup in an attempt to start loving my natural face. I’m happy to say that I managed to keep every one of them! Every entry in my daily journal is filled out, I lost that 40 pounds, and while I still wear and love makeup, I can now go without it if I want/have to – before I wouldn’t even go get the garbage cans without a full face of foundation.

It was tough to keep all of these goals for an entire year, but I found three key steps along the way that really helped me maintain my focus and kick major butt during 2015 – and they’re all pretty easy to do. (Click here to see my look back on 2015!) Are you ready to make 2016 your year? Get ready, ’cause here we go:

Step 1: Set the right kind of goal.

A lot of the time, the problem with resolutions is that we use the New Year as a chance to declare all of our big dreams for the year ahead. There’s nothing wrong with taking stock of those dreams, but often they come in the form of “I want to lose weight” or “I want to do better in my career.” These are fine goals to have, but they’re so vague that it’s hard to tell what success looks like or how to get there. Make sure your goals are specific and attainable. If you want to lose weight (not that this is an accurate measure of health or beauty, mind you, so please be sure you’re doing it for the right reasons!) you’ve got to set a realistic goal for yourself. Instead of saying something like “I want to lose 100 pounds this year,” which is an awfully big goal to set, maybe say “I want to lose four pounds per month in 2016” or, even better, “I want to exercise three days a week.” With the career goal, you might say something like “I want to learn one new task pertaining to my job per month” or something along those lines. Give yourself some leeway – you can always do more than you planned, but you’re not likely to suddenly do something daily you’ve never done before if it’s going to be a lot of effort. Once you have a specific, measurable goal in mind, it’s much easier to hold yourself to it long-term!

Step 2: Figure out what’s kept you from doing it before.

Often our resolutions are things we’ve wanted to accomplish for a long time but have either failed at or not begun in the past, so now we’re using the brand-new year as a chance to finally Do The Thing. However, if you haven’t been able to do this thing before, chances are there’s a reason why. Figure out this reason and then work with it, not against it. I had wanted to lose weight for my own reasons for a long time, but I HATE going to the gym. I would come up with every excuse under the sun not to go. In the end I realized that the part of me that hated the gym was stronger than the part of me that wanted to lose weight. So I bought an elliptical for my apartment. I didn’t really have the space, so I crammed it in my bedroom, and it was definitely a half-a-paycheck kind of investment, but I knew in my heart that if I got one I would use it – and I did. Sometimes rather than trying to make yourself overcome whatever’s getting you in your way, you have to acknowledge and learn how to fit it into your goal. If you’re trying to get ahead at work but keep getting sucked into Pinterest, cutting out social media altogether isn’t gonna make you happy. Instead, give yourself quick social media breaks throughout the day to keep you satisfied. Want to eat better but can’t stop bingeing on chocolate? (Been there, my friend.) Buy pre-wrapped chocolates or portion some out so you know you can have a piece every now and again without eating an entire Hershey’s bar. And don’t be embarrassed – you’re not “slipping up,” you’re working toward your goal one step at a time. Go you!!

Step 3: Give yourself incentives.

While of course your end goal is the best reward of all, sometimes we need more than just that to keep us going when motivation wanes. Sometimes we’re too tired to exercise after work, or sometimes we’d rather watch TV than take that walk we’d planned on earlier in the day. First of all, let me preface this by saying there’s absolutely nothing wrong with giving yourself a break if you need it. Some days life is just too much and the last thing we need is to stress about our personal goals! But with that in mind, you’ll need to learn the difference between “can’t” and “don’t want to.” If what you’re ACTUALLY feeling is that you just don’t want to, this is where we need a little compromise. This could be “I’ll only work out for 20 minutes tonight” or “I only need to write one paragraph in my journal instead of a whole page.” The important thing is that you get in the habit of working towards your goal, not necessarily that you’re giving 100% output every time – that’ll come on its own if you’re persistent. It’s also important to give yourself longer-term incentives, too, like “I’ll buy myself a new shirt when I lose 10 pounds” or “I’ll treat myself to a new bag when I’ve journaled for a month straight” or something like that. Having little rewards to look forward to at little milestones help the bigger milestones not seem so far off, and it’s important to treat yourself every now and again anyway! 😉

I hope these tips are helpful – this is seriously how I managed to accomplish my resolutions in 2015. For 2016, my resolution is to meditate three times per week – this might seem like a small goal, but I’m so awful at meditating regularly even though it makes me feel so nice! I’d also like to spend one night per week writing in my tarot journal, which I currently only use sporadically when I’m doing readings. I’ll keep you posted on how these are going later on! 🙂