How to make your New year Resolution work

This is how to make a New Year’s Resolution work What makes a resolution successful? Unfortunately there’s no magic bullet, but all these things seem to help. 1. Stimulus control Having more control over behavior cues in their surroundings helped people stay on the straight and narrow. eg. Not going to parties when they were off alcohol, or putting a slimming photo on the fridge. 2. Don’t worry about slip-ups Most people slip up with their resolutions – but successful resolvers didn’t let slips push push them off track. They found that made their resolution stronger. 3. Willpower Yes, it’s a cliché, but being more motivated to start with, makes you MORE likely to succeed in the long-run. 4. Reward yourself for succeeding This technique was also cited more by people who ended up being successful. Having a social group to help you didn’t seem to make a huge difference to the people in this study, for the first six months at least. But don't do these things: 1. Self-blame Don’t beat yourself up for not making the goals! 2. Indulge in wishful thinking Don’t just think what would be nice, have clear plan for what you CAN do. Only 19% of participants had kept their resolution up after 2 years… But hey! There’s room for 2 New Years and 2 more resolutions in that time.