COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — With New Year’s Day right around the corner, many are choosing resolutions for 2023. Unfortunately, resolutions can be hard to stick to. Licensed Professional Counselor Folayan Williams of Rivertown Counseling Center in Columbus shared some tips to help readers achieve their goals for the new year.
First, she suggested looking at your resolutions as promises to yourself and considering how you can keep those promises.
“You want a new year to be just that – a new year, and not a repeat of a previous year,” she said. “So asking yourself, what are some promises or what are some new things that I can bring into this new year that I would actually want to do or enjoy doing or would benefit from?”
She explained how to choose a good New Year’s resolution.
“Well, you think about what it is that you’re wanting to see in the new year,” she said. “If you want to see yourself grow, you want to see yourself change, think about what you want to see in the new year. Once you think about that part, then you can look at, ‘Okay, how do I want to get there?’ And then comes the New Year’s resolution or the New Year’s promises or the New Year goal.”
Williams warned that it can be overwhelming to try to stick to multiple New Year’s resolutions.
“If you make so many, it can be so overwhelming that you can easily get discouraged, and then, later on, it just goes into a downward spiral to where you just don’t want to look at the list anymore,” she said.
If you break your resolution, try again to stick to it, Williams said.
She recommended having an accountability partner.
“Partner up with someone that’s close to you whether it’s a family member or a friend or a coworker that you feel like family with,” she said. “But talk about it. Share it with people. Share it with people that you know match your energy, as well, of wanting to be a better person.”
Williams also recommended creating a vision board or journal with words and images representing what you want to accomplish in the new year. She recommended looking at it daily to make it a constant reminder of your resolution.
“Through it all, no matter what resolutions that you choose, be encouraging to yourself and be patient with yourself,” she said. “Try not to start out at square 25 when you’re really starting out at square one and you’re moving slowly to square number two.”
Williams said we actually have two years within one – one that starts on Jan. 1 and the other that starts on your birthday. This gives people two opportunities to start fresh and achieve their goals.
Williams said the most common New Year’s resolution her clients make is to get to a healthy weight.
“Or, there is another one, wanting to get into a better space as far as being available to either family relationships or friendships or professional relationships,” she said. “Just wanting to be more social.”
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