Recently I was scrolling through Instagram and I saw one of my favorite Instagrammers, Golden Aimee, post one of the funniest captions to her pictures: “May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolution”.

Obviously I chuckled! None of us want our troubles to last long, and more often than not our New Year’s resolutions don’t make it past January. In fact, a study conducted by Strava indicates that January 12th is the day that most people give up! But did you know it also only takes 66 days for a new habit to become automatic?

66 days! That’s a little more two months! Are you prepared to put in the work?

If you are, then let’s begin! Not only will it take a short amount of time, but I have a simple guide for you to follow to make sure you can start 2020 strong and end it even stronger.

I will go over some of the most popular resolutions people make and how you can go about them in a way that will surely lead to success, but before I do, let’s talk about some of the biggest mistakes people make when making their New Year’s resolutions.

The first big mistake people make is that they dream WAY too big and have the deadline be “the end of 2020”. Although it’s great to have one big goal to achieve, what’s even more fulfilling is actually achieving milestones along the way. Not only is this a great way to get started, but it is something that you can change and increase/decrease throughout your journey so that you are always working towards a doable goal. Not to mention, since people make their deadline for the end of the year instead of making milestones, it’s easier for them to give the excuse “oh I still have a few more months, I can put it off for tomorrow.” This is what we are trying to avoid!

The second big mistake is that people are determined to start or quit something RIGHT AWAY. For example, if you are trying to start working out, then you’re thinking that you need to be at the gym every day, right? Or if you’re trying to quit smoking, then you’re thinking that you need to quit cold turkey, right? Both of those are dead WRONG. Going to the gym every day is only going to make you super sore, then you’ll have to take a week off for recovery, then by the time you are able to start again you are going to feel so unmotivated because of the pain you felt that you will never go to the gym again. It’s the same with smoking – if you try to quit by jumping off of the ladder completely instead of taking one step down at a time, you will find the detox to be so harsh, so uncomfortable, and guess what? You’ll be back at it in a week or two. This all goes back to trying to achieve milestones as opposed to making one big goal!

Lastly, the other big mistake people fall into is actually trying to do too many things. Your life can only balance so many things so why are you trying to be better at all these new things that you promised yourself on top of trying to maintain your normal home and work life?

By knowing these common mistakes, now you are even more prepared to start!

Working Out

This is the most common resolution! Gyms see a spike in membership and attendance in January only to see it come back to normal by February. So what you need to do to stay on top of it is simply by making small, achievable goals. Once you complete that first goal, increase your goal a little bit! If you want to run a marathon by December 2020, then start by making the goal to run 15 minutes at a time. Once you can do that, then maybe change the goal to being able to run a mile in 10 minutes! It’s all about making small, achievable goals. That will keep you motivated to keep coming to the gym and accomplish your resolution!

Quitting (insert thing here)

Whether it’s smoking, biting your nails, drinking too much coffee, etc, these are all attainable through milestones. Start with a baby step! If you know you drink 5 cups of coffee in a day, then you’ll want to cut it back to 4 cups a day, but maybe have a cheat day of 5 cups a day once a week. Sooner or later, you’ll find that it will be habit to only have 4 cups a day. Once that habit has formed, then move down the ladder inch by inch. Success is measured through progress! And the more you can progress, the better your chances are of achieving your overall goal.

Saving/Making More Money

This one is a tad harder since the act of saving is not immune to emergencies or random expenses like your car breaking down. It can be hard to save money in these circumstance because you may even have to take out money from your savings to pay for these things. And that’s ok! This resolution shouldn’t be about a certain amount – it should be about the act itself! If you can put ANY amount of money away per month, that’s a win! In terms of making more money, this is going to require you to continually work harder at your job. Put in those hours, get more one-on-one time with your boss, prove that you are an asset to the business you are in! Maybe your success will be measured in getting more hours at work. I mean, it’s not a pay raise per se, but you are getting more time at work and that’s still technically making more money.

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Overall, you need to remember that it’s the small wins that account for your success. New Year’s resolutions are hard. If they were easy then it wouldn’t be something we, as a society, put such an emphasis on.

My goals for 2020 are to save and make more money, work with more companies (any number would suffice!), and to lower my debt. I am telling you this because by sharing my resolutions, I will feel more inclined to work harder at them!

To make sure I can accomplish these goals, I will:

• Put in $100 per month for savings
• Email at least three new companies a month
• Keep to my current schedule to pay off my credit cards until such a time as I can afford to pay off more

I don’t want to box myself in too much with these goals. If I can save any amount per month that would be a win, and even just paying off the minimum on my credit cards still qualifies as lowering my debt. These milestones are small but they are notable to me because they are still accomplishing my resolution to myself.

Only you can hold yourself accountable for your resolutions. Keep yourself to it and don’t cave under the pressure! Make 2020 your year to make changes in your life!

He was my best friend for all too much time, Did everything together from morning til night.

Knew that I loved him before we made it official, Never thought that love would kill me with a pistol.

Now I will try to keep this as truthful as possible, But if I’m being honest telling this without emotion will be almost impossible.

I could blame the end on a number of things, From moving in too early and all that would bring.

We lost our independence because we were too scared to say otherwise, Well that bit us in the ass and started our demise.

I treated him like a king, day in and day out, Never once receiving a “thank you” which would cause me to shout.

How hard is it to show appreciation to the one you love most? Yet I shoved that in his face as sort of a boast.

I just wanted him to give me more as a way to show me that he was focused on our future, I mean for God’s sake paying for so much shit really made me feel like he was just a moocher.

Now you’ve read my take on things I thought he did wrong, But let me give you a take on my faults which hopefully won’t be too long.

Sometimes he would need space and time for relaxation, But I would storm in on that important time without any hesitation.

I was constantly threatened and anxious by the girls of his past, Which had me on edge, questioning him, and jumping to conclusions all too fast.

The fights started slowly but soon were part of our weekly reality, And with his life’s background was 100% not his cup of tea.

He has a background of family and ladies that weren’t all too kind to him, All of which caused his anger to be tipped over the brim.

Now me I’m a little different and was blessed with love all around, So I couldn’t understand why he would so easily shut down.

Pushing him to talk about feelings he couldn’t recognize, Only made more problems start to materialize.

Bitter, shattered, and heartbroken I would go sit and cry, Because the love of my life would just leave me on standby.

See I like to talk about problems when they come up, But he would sit and yell at me to just shut up.

Now in my head I knew I needed to give him space to cool off, I mean we lived together, eventually we would have to talk.

But what bugged me the most is that he would want to sweep everything under the rug, Whereas I sat in tatters really just needing a hug.

The problems built up and his silence kept pissing me off, Until one day I said “if you don’t talk, then I’ve had enough.”

Raging mad, he stormed out of the house in silence, I was dumbfounded by the fact that his reaction was only defiance.

I’m sure you are trying to give fault to the bad guy, But are you sure you have enough information to even try?

I can attest that he FOR SURE didn’t handle that well, But I know what I did wasn’t exactly all that swell.

In all honesty we both had heavy hands in the destruction of our relationship, But it’s how he dealt with the end that made me feel like our love was just a counterfeit.

Maybe it’s how all guys deal with traumatic losses, But I’m just not a fan of countless nightly bed tosses.

Barely able to get out of bed, all motivation to eat and move was gone, Definitely had family and friends wondering what the hell could be done.

He threw my love away without even saying sorry, So my only course of distraction was to go out and party.

Well I found solace at the end of a night of dancing and drinking, Meanwhile still thinking about him and with whom that night he would be sleeping.

Somewhere along the line, my sadness turned to burning rage, And through that anger my new self took center stage.

I became a person who didn’t give a fuck about anything, A true phoenix from the flames, he just became a chip in my wing.

You better believe moving forward that anger became my passion, And when he came back saying all the things he did wrong, I really had no compassion.

You see when heart’s break, they don’t just shatter, You lose pieces of yourself in the whole process of the matter.

So before when I would get sad about the problems we were having, Now in my relationships I stand up for myself instead of begging to start hashing.

You don’t want to talk? Fine, see what silence feels like, I’m sure you will find me to not be so ladylike.

I’m sure by now this sounds like I became a bitch, and well that’s true, Because dealing with problems like a fucking boss sounds a hell of a lot better than being blue.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually a pretty nice girl, But trust me when I say you won’t like me if you try to take me for a whirl.

So yea the whole experience sure was some trying times, But Ariana Grande said it best with this next line.

“Been through some bad shit, I should be a sad bitch, Who would’ve thought it’d turn me into a savage.”

I’d rather forget June 29th and everything it did to me, But hell I came out stronger – it’s my crappy anniversary.