How to keep sustainable habits from New Year’s resolutions

It’s been a few days after the New Year. After reflecting upon the year that has gone, many usually think of New Year’s resolutions to help themselves have a better life in the future. In fact, we have previously collated New Year’s resolutions that could inspire you to live sustainably in 2020. But whatever goals and resolutions you choose to set for yourself, you need to find ways to keep yourself going until you achieve it. In fact, you need to think of sustainable habits.

Half of all New Year’s resolutions fail. It’s appalling since these are ways of improving oneself but left forgotten in the haze of life. However, you can do better than the average person. You need to move beyond the concept of resolution-making and instead developing habits. Most importantly, you also need to think of how to live sustainably in a world that slowly being overrun by climate change.

Tips on keeping sustainable habits

Here are some tips to help everyone keep sustainable habits from your New Year’s resolutions.

These are tried and tested habit-creation ways from fellow bloggers who you get inspired to create a sustainable 2020.

1. Get on a Veganuary program. – Yum Vegan Lunch Ideas

So many people are trying out or turning towards veganism this year in a bid to help the planet, animals, their health and more. It can be an intimidating change, so the best way to dip your toes in, and make sure your New Year’s resolution sticks is to join in a veganuary program. 

Veganuary programs challenge you to be vegan for the month of January and they provide a community of people to help you out, a set amount of time to accomplish your goals and if you sign up for our program, a free 4 week meal plan and beginner guides to take the guess work out of making this amazing change!

2.  Find an accountability partner. – Holly Connors

Most of us start new resolutions with great intentions and go well for a short time before things drop off. One of the best ways to turn a resolution into a habit is by finding an accountability partner to share the goal. If you keep each other accountable and work together to create your new habit, you are less likely to let it fall away as someone else is now counting on you to succeed. 

3.  Practice Calendar Accountability. – Sam Fury

Calendar accountability is a great way to hold yourself accountable for keeping up a daily habit and is also a good little “mind trick” of a motivator. Here’s how it works.

Each day you perform your daily habit, cross off that day on your calendar. After about a week your mind will go though a type of a paradigm change. The “pleasure” of not breaking the visual streak becomes greater than the “pain” of whatever habit you are trying to form.

4. Habit snowball – Olivia from Happy in the Hollow

This year, I’m going to try tackling my new year’s resolutions with what I call a habit snowball – focusing on one part of my life at a time. This will help to prevent overwhelm and abandoned good intentions. My overall goal is to approach life with more mindfulness, and I will start with a solid foundation: good sleep.

5. Try Anchoring. – Helen Foster, Not Your Normal Health Blog

One of the easiest ways to stick to a new habit is a psychological technqiue called anchoring. This is where you link your new behaviour to something you already do. So, say you want to eat more fruit, you’d pack a piece in your bag and eat it on the commute to work – every day. If you want to take more steps, you could add 100 every time you go to the bathroom – every time. Once you’ve set up your anchor, keep doing it. Repeating the behaviour over and over again is what helps your brain create a habit.

6.      Start the New Year with a Goal Twin. – Mike Burrett

Einstein once said: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”

We can use this same theory for our New Year goals, trying to improve on the previous year using the same approach as before – How can we expect a different result?

The simple answer is, we can’t! 

My top tip for 2020 is to use what I call a ‘Goal Twin’ – someone who shares your goals, that will work with you, someone with whom you can push one another through the year to stay on track, and hopefully achieve your goals.

Whatever your goals for the year are; fitness, weight loss, studying, job promotion, mental well-being, blog writing, arts and crafts… anything you can think of that you can work on together, or at least check in with regularly and offer advice and motivation to keep progressing forwards.

Read more in the full article at: https://amplifiedfitnesstips.com/new-year-new-start/

7.      Eco-Friendly Follow up Christmas Gifting. – Sally Flint

A great way to follow up on your gifting of items made from recyclable eco-friendly materials is by sharing a follow on gift next Christmas linked to the same product. For example, if you bought your family recyclable drinking straws then why not make them a delicious fruit punch to emjoy with it. Or if you shared a bamboo cup, how about buying some vouchers for coffee from a favourite local coffee straw. Making the connection to the earlier gift, keeps the focus of sustainability forefront in family and friends minds at key points of the year, such as birthdays and Christmas. 

8.      Have photos of devastation from single-use plastic to motivate you into plastic-free living. – Izzy and Phil

We know this will be a challenge and so have photos of the devastation caused by single-use plastics in our motorhome; being a small space, we are confronted with them regularly!  We hope that this will be a constant reminder of why we chose this as our New Year’s resolution and strengthen our resolve until it becomes a habit.

Izzy & Phil travel and adventure full-time in their motorhome in Europe. Read more at https://thegapdecaders.com.

Conclusion

Instead of creating New Year’s resolutions, we should think of developing habits. Habits last a long time until they become embedded in your own lifestyles themselves. Furthermore, the key to succeed in creating sustainable habits are techniques such as accountability partners, habit snowball, and anchoring.

Learn and get inspiration from the tips discussed above. Use them to guide you towards the better life you envision for yourself every year. Most importantly, if you want to make your life more sustainable, you can continue developing eco-friendly habits, one at a time. Go zero waste. Go plastic-free. Practice veganism. Whatever you do, stick to it for your sake and Mother Nature.

If you like the tips on keeping sustainable habits or have your own technique/s, let us know in the comments below. Don’t forget to share this article to others, to help them create their own sustainable life.