Five Ways To Make Your Resolutions Work

How are you doing on your 2026 New Year’s resolutions? Or starting out this year with a fresh start? Resolutions – commitments – aren’t empty wishes. Yet unless you take the time to ask yourself thoughtful questions about those commitments or resolutions, you may get stuck or stop all together.

The five ideas below are meant to guide you toward the inner work – the emotional work – that makes change possible. If you want to call them New Year’s resolutions, go ahead. Please remember that change takes time.

 

1)  Accept who you are right now, don’t deny your reality.

Why do you need to accept yourself exactly as you are if your goal is to change? That seems contradictory. Yet acceptance shouldn’t be confused with resignation, “No! I can’t accept it. I want to change it. I HAVE to change it. I want it gone!”

However, consider the fact that acceptance means identifying that a problem is a problem. It’s denial that keeps people stuck. And so nothing happens, day after day, month after month, year after year.

So, this first step is to honestly and as objectively as possible assess and accept yourself, just the way you are. Note your strengths. And note your vulnerabilities. From that stance, you can begin to chisel away at the change you need or desire. You need to accept responsibility for your part of the issue so that you can begin to work on what you have control over…. and that’s you.

2) Be compassionate with yourself; don’t add shame to the mix.

So you’ve accepted you have a problem. You have looked at it squarely in the eye and decided to do something about it. Congratulate yourself on taking those steps while reminding yourself that changing behaviors and maintaining those changes is no walk in the park. It’s going to take time, effort, and understanding when old habits want to creep back in.

Many of the things you want to change about yourself are things you strongly dislike. But shame isn’t your friend here. If you hate yourself for the problem, it actually lends that problem more power. You may feel you’ve been too weak, or that you’ve procrastinated, somehow justified your inaction, or even been afraid of change.

All of those things make you human. But don’t let these shaming thoughts affect where you go from there; you aren’t stuck because you’ve not yet changed. You’re a work in progress (we all are!) and be proud of yourself for deciding to change.

3) Recognize where you have power/responsibility and make a concrete plan from there.

Sometimes change can happen without outside interference. More often, though, it has to happen within real limitations.

It’s easy to say, “There’s nothing I can do until X, Y, or Z happens.” But there are almost always small steps you can take today. When you take an honest inventory of your situation, including what is within your control, you can begin to create momentum.

Small, realistic steps matter. Treat yourself with compassion as you move forward, and those fears or justifications will be easier to work with.

4) Realize courage isn’t a lack of fear.

Change takes courage. And courage doesn’t mean you’re fearless; it means you keep going despite your fear,  whether that fear has to do with failing or succeeding at change.

You can find courage by remembering times you’ve shown it before. It may have been long ago or in an entirely different area of your life. That doesn’t matter. What matters is remembering that courage already exists within you.

5) Emulate your heroes.

Think about the courage you’ve seen in people you admire. They don’t possess something you lack; they found what they needed within themselves, just as you can.

Learn from them. Reflect on what they tried, what they said, how they acted. Then consider how those same qualities might help you with your current goals.

One helpful tool is creating a personal mantra…a word or phrase you quietly repeat to remind yourself of the change you’re working toward. Think of it as a private cheering squad you carry with you.

Allow these five steps to soothe you, support you, and guide you. You’re not on this journey alone. And in time, you may find yourself becoming someone else’s hero.

Image courtesy of Pexels.

Post originally published on December 30, 2017; updated and republished on January 24, 2026.