Who doesn’t love the clean slate of a new year? It’s an opportunity to reflect on how your year has gone and the chance to start fresh. Whether you want to lose weight or write a book, cook more, or invent time travel, we’ll cover all the tools you need to stay on track with your New Year’s resolutions! (Though admittedly, that last one might be tough.) 

Step 1: Brainstorm

Before making a year-long commitment to what your resolutions will be, start with a brainstorming session. Write down what you want your life to look like in terms of your relationships, career, health, and finances.

The key here is that you’re honest with yourself about what you want to get out of the. next 365 days.

Read over your newly brainstormed list and prioritize them into the 3 most important New Year’s resolutions you want to go after. Studies have shown the more a goal means to you, the more likely you are to achieve it. Use the pages in the Rocketbook Panda Planner to verbalize your motivation and visualize the benefits that will come from a successful year of resolutions. Plainly, if you don’t care about your resolution, you won’t keep them.

What if you want to adjust your new year’s resolutions? No problem. With the Rocketbook Panda Planner you can erase your pages and start anew. It’s never too late to start over. 

• Brainstorm your hopes for 2022
• Prioritize your goals
• Put care into your resolutions

Step 2: Write Your Resolutions Somewhere Obvious

Once you’ve chosen your resolutions for the upcoming year, the next step is to keep them. The unfortunate fact is that 80% of new year’s resolutions are abandoned by February. That’s why it’s so important to write down your resolutions — Neuroscience has shown that writing your goals down helps you achieve them! If you need help verbalizing your goals in an effective way, check out our Goal Setting Guide.

You’ve already written down your resolutions in Step 1, but make sure you see them every day. One option is to scan your Rocketbook Panda Planner and set your goal pages as the background to your computer or phone. You’ll be forced to look at your resolutions which will be a constant reminder that you need to hit the gym, apply for jobs, or buy a part for your time machine (we still don’t support that last idea, by the way).

 

What if you’re best motivated by social pressure? No problem. Scan your Rocketbook Panda Planner and send your resolutions to a friend. Giving them access to your goals makes you accountable and adds some outside pressure to stay on track.

• Write down your resolutions concisely
• Keep your resolutions in a spot you see everyday

Step 3: Make an Action Plan

Long term resolutions can be intimidating and are easy to put off. To stave off these common missteps, make a short term, step-by-step plan.

Start by choosing specific metrics by which to measure your success. If your goal is to lose weight, pick a specific number, like 180lbs. If your goal is to a futuristic note-taker, pick how many Rocketbook notebooks you want to own, like 4. Wink, wink.

Okay, after you’ve set your measures of success, Create a roadmap that will act as the path to your resolution success. Breaking down big goal into smaller, actionable steps help turn overwhelming dreams into an achievable reality.

A step-by-step approach also has the added benefit of giving you quick wins. You’re more likely to feel great about your progress if you can check off “run 4 times” each week, rather than feeling overwhelmed by the goal to “run a marathon”. Steps are easier to follow — it’s why we’ve broken down this guide into 4 steps instead of making it one giant paragraph.

 

What if I want a planner with less structure, and more freedom? No problem. The Rocketbook Everyday Planner is an alternative solution to new year success. Its pages have a minimalist design, but are still reusable, undated, and work with the Rocketbook app.

• Break down your resolution
• Choose a measure of success
• Use momentum to your advantage

Step 4: Track Progress

When progress is slow and steady, it’s easy to forget where you started and how much you’ve improved since the beginning.

Give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back by tracking your progress. Record how many push-ups you do each week or how much time you spent practicing guitar…whatever your resolution, it’s fun to look back at weeks and months of progress to see how far you’ve come!

 

With your Rocketbook notebook at your side, it’s easy to pick a method for tracking your New Year’s resolutions! No matter how you decide to monitor yourself, commit to scanning your progress page each week as a reminder an extra reminder to work on your resolution. No go out and get resolving! Or is it resoluting? Resolution-ating? You know what we mean.

What if I don’t know how to track my progress? No problem. The Rocketbook Panda Planner’s monthly template has a very simple habit tracking system. Simply check off the “H” for each day you work towards your resolution.

• Pick a method to track your progress
• Check-in regularly

Everyone sets new year’s resolutions, but most people don’t keep them. Simply by reading this guide, you’ve set yourself up for success, for you now know the common points of failure and how to avoid them. Additionally, paired with your Rocketbook Panda Planner, you’re an unstoppable force that can easily brainstorm, write, plan, and track your resolutions.