Don’t give up: New Year’s Resolutions

We’re now a week and a half into the New Year, and it’s safe to say a lot of people will already have given up on the promises they made to themselves when the clock struck midnight on January 1st. Whether you’re trying to lose weight, quit smoking, learn a new skill or save money, here are our tips to help you stick with it.

1. Set yourself manageable goals. Instead of saying ‘I’m going to lose weight’, decide how much you want to lose in a set time frame, and reward yourself when you get there.

2. Focus – don’t try and do everything at once. Choose one or two changes you want to make to your life and concentrate on those.

3. Write your resolutions down. Seeing them in black and white will help you to establish exactly what you want to achieve.

4. Only set targets that you really care about. If it’s not important to you, it’s so much easier to lose interest. Think about why you’re doing it – if you can’t think of a reason, it’s probably not worth doing.

5. Tell friends and family what you want to achieve. It’ll be harder to give up if other people are keeping an eye on you.

6. If you do have a wobble, don’t use that as an excuse to give up. Put it down as a one-off and start again.

7. Take your time. You don’t have to achieve all your goals on the first day. If your goal is to exercise more, start by going for a run to see how you feel, before you rush out and spend lots of money on a gym membership.

If you didn’t set any New Year’s Resolutions this year, it’s not too late! If you want to make some changes in your life, you don’t have to wait for January 1st to roll around again. Why not make a start today?

Learning a language is often a popular New Year’s Resolution, so if you’ve decided 2013 is the year to brush up on your German, or start learning Japanese, have a look at our website to see how we can help you get started.

Good luck!