New Years Resolutions: How to Set Healthy Goals
Posted by Mike Sonneveldt - See Editorial Guidelines (Last Updated On: Mon Mar 25 2024)
As the New Year approaches, we at Prescription Hope want to help support your health goals for the new year. While setting resolutions can be intimidating, it can be beneficial in changing your lifestyle to become a better you!
Most of us have done it at some point in our life. We watch the ball in Times Square drop. We all sing “Auld Lang Syne.” Maybe we even steal a kiss. However, a lot of us set our hearts on a popular trend: New Year’s resolutions.
Gym memberships spike, health food stores see a new influx of customers, and people swear off old habits. We make our New Year’s resolutions to change our lives in powerful ways.
A fresh start is tempting to all of us but learning how to set healthy New Year’s resolutions has caught pushback in recent years. Expert voices claim that setting New Year’s goals does not work and that most of us are bound to fail.
How to Set Healthy New Year’s Resolutions
A person fails with New Year’s resolutions because of a few major reasons. We look at our future with hope and excitement when writing our goals. We dream about who we want to be in the future, and we put every goal into our resolutions.
However, we commit two major mistakes when setting goals.
First, we tend to set too big of goals or too many goals. We desire to be the best possible version of ourselves. So, we decide to change everything in our lives—in a single moment. When we write down our resolutions, we think about getting in perfect shape, making tons of money, finding our dream partner, or changing everything about our personalities.
Second, we try to do it all at once, yet wonder why we burn out so fast. We get the gym membership, hire the trainer, get the nutrition plan, and buy the smaller clothes at the same time. We believe all those changes at once will force us to keep our promises.
Add the fitness goals to the financial, personal, and relational goals all at once—and again, you have the recipe for disaster.
There is a better way. We at Prescription Hope decided to give you some tips on how to set healthy New Year’s resolutions. Follow these tips, and you will look back on the year with a sense of accomplishment and pride!
1. Be Reasonable with New Year’s Resolutions
Be kind to yourself. You are a busy person with a lot of things to do. A bunch of complex goals does not help you grow but frustrates you as you fail to meet those unrealistic expectations.
Instead, find one or two things that you believe you can reasonably change in your life. Decide to eat a few healthy meals per week. Or get a gym membership with an expectation that you will go 2 to 3 times a week. Accordingly, check out and research great health advice from websites like Mayo Clinic and build your plan.
If you sit down and are kind to yourself with your expectations, you provide yourself with a better chance to reach your goals. Remember, unreasonable expectations are not fair to yourself. You would not set massive, out-of-reach goals for your best friend or your loved ones, so do not do it to yourself.
Learn how to set goals and that New Year’s resolution is only a step away.
2. Understand Your Current Situation
It is time to take an assessment. This means sitting down and being honest with yourself about where you are in life, and where you want to be at the end of the year. Write out an honest assessment and take the time to write out the things you want to see change. From there, make a list of how important those resolutions are to you. It is important to realize how useful this process is.
For example, if you want to get into better shape, but you also want to earn more money at work, then you need to decide which one is more important. You have limited hours and energy in the day to devote to a goal. If you decide on the bigger priority, you can save yourself from setting unrealistic expectations.
After you decide on a great goal or two, determine what it takes to get there. Set small goals that add up to the big goal. Some people find success in setting weekly goals or making daily goals to reach their yearly goals.
Work backward from your final resolution and break it down into small, achievable steps. You are not just changing a part of your daily habits. You are creating a new lifestyle.
3. Take an Accounting of Your Health
Even if your goals do not involve fitness, you still need to know about your health. Silent problems can cause serious issues down the road if you do not identify them early on. Things like high blood pressure,high cholesterol, or diabetes can do major damage if not caught.
Learn to recognize the signs of diabetes and understand the symptoms of high blood pressure.
Get a check-up from your doctor, get a blood screen, and determine what medications would be best for the year ahead. If you need to take Onglyza or Jardiance for Type 2 diabetes, or Lipitor for your high cholesterol, then consult your doctor and find the best option to purchase it.
Medications can be especially intimidating, considering their cost and the complex nature of paying for them. If you need support in getting low-cost prescription medications, then please check out Prescription Hope’s website to learn how to get access to affordable medications.
4. Get Help with Your New Year’s Resolutions
You do not have to do this on your own. Learn how to set a healthy New Year’s resolution by looking into resources and asking experts. Spend a little time researching the goals you have set and how to achieve them. Websites such as WebMD, Mayo Clinic, and universities such as Harvard produce great information for free that may be of value to your resolutions.
Also, take the time to discuss your goals with experts in whatever field relates to your goal. Ask them to help you design a plan. Perhaps a financial advisor or a nutrition expert is needed. Or a marriage counselor could help your marriage deepen and become richer.
5. Understand Your Budget
Some people may think that their budget does not have a whole lot to do with the goals they have set. However, considering each goal will most likely involve some type of spending, it is vital to know what you can and cannot spend towards your goal.
Sit down with your budget (a resolution in itself!) and determine where you can clear out expenses and what costs are associated with your goals. When you find nutrition plans, local trainers, or low-cost drugs, you need to know your budget.
This gives you a clear picture when determining your budget for your resolution, and helps you plot the course to achieving your goal by the end of the year.
6. Declutter Your Life
Setting a new goal will make you feel like you added one more thing to focus on. And you might be right. If you are adding something into your life that is out of your normal routine or habits, then it is best to try to remove other things that eat up your attention. Learning how to set a healthy New Year’s resolution means removing those things that hinder you.
Set your bills to autopay, find better deals to free up finances, and get rid of distractions that keep you from your goals. Overall, find solutions to problems you avoid.
For example, plenty of people stress about the cost of their insulin or their blood pressure medications. We at Prescription Hope understand the stress of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on medications such as those and provide a stress-free $60.00 per medication, per month. Getting affordable medications can make all the difference in decluttering your life.
7. Don’t Worry … You Will Fail
Be patient with yourself. We all make mistakes and stumble at points. But so often, people set resolutions, fail to keep up with them for a few days and they give up on their goals because of the small failure.
Knowing that you will stumble on your path takes the stress and weight off of trying to be perfect. The journey takes a long time, and nobody is perfect. We all miss a healthy meal, a workout, a bit of available overtime, or that cup of coffee with an old friend. Getting back up can be the difference between failing the goal and successfully instituting the resolution you made at the beginning of the year.
Bonus: You Can Set New Year’s Resolutions!
Many people say that learning how to set healthy New Year’s resolutions is a waste of time. However, many others have successfully integrated change into their life. All because of a New Year’s resolution. People have stopped unhealthy habits, begun healthy ones, built relationships, and changed the entire direction of their lives.
Telling yourself that you can do it is half the battle. If you believe you can overcome…then you will!
Prescription Hope
Prescription Hope supports people with all kinds of conditions by helping them find the right affordable medications. We offer access to medications people need at a reasonable monthly rate of $60.00 per medication. We desire for every member to live without the stress and worry of paying too much for vital prescriptions, but to always have access to low-cost drugs. No one should have to choose between their medication or bills.
We provide a simple, consistent monthly rate of $60.00 per medication for over 1,500 medications. This means that our customers benefit from a wide variety of medications for various illnesses and conditions.
If you have been diagnosed with a condition requiring medication and are looking to get low-cost drugs or affordable medications, then please visit us at www.PrescriptionHope.com to learn more about how we can save you money every month!
