How to nail your mid-year resolutions

We’re halfway through the year, and how many of those distant New Year’s resolutions have you managed to keep up? The gym? The 8 glasses of water a day? The binning of make-up wipes to take up a proper skin care routine? All down the drain. But all is not lost until January rolls around again. We are smack dab in the middle of 2018, and there’s no better time to renew those pipe dreams as mid-year resolutions.

Let’s face it – January is the worst time to make any sort of commitment. It’s cold, it’s dark, nothing is fun anymore and after the sparkliness of Christmas, we all feel a bit crap about life and ourselves. Why on earth did we decide that that would be a good time to make year-long promises that we’d take up yoga and finally get our pension sorted? Nobody wants to think about that stuff in January. The only thing we’re concerned about is staying semi-warm and eating comfort food.

Now July – there’s a month that’s a bit more upbeat. The summer is swinging, you’re probably going on holidays soon, your social life is glittering and you’re feeling good about life in general. It’s not too much of a stretch to think about little goals that could bump up our happiness levels even more. We’d be much more open to making a commitment when we’re basking in warm summer vibes. And that’s where the mid-year resolutions come in.

A mid-year resolution is pretty much the exact same as a New Year’s one – you set a goal, and give yourself a year to smash it. It could be the classic quit smoking or a big goal like running a marathon, but whatever it is, as long as you’ve got the drive and willpower, it’s totally achievable. And the beauty of setting it in July is that no one else suspects it. There’ll be no coffee machine grillings about “what your resolution is”; you’ll have no one to prove it to but yourself.

If you’re in need of a good mid-year boost, these tips on how to smash your new (but not new year’s) resolutions should come in handy:

• Be practical – don’t set goals that conflict with upcoming holidays or events. If you want to run a 10k, but are going on holidays for two weeks where you won’t be able to train, don’t set yourself up for a loss. Start your resolution after you get back.
• Embrace the season – set goals that you might not have kept to so easily had they been made in winter. Any type of exercise or keeping your water intake up is much easier in the summer, for example, and you’ll feel like you’ve finally cracked it when you stick to it.
• Be strict on yourself – although it’s nice not having to compare yourself to everyone else who’s doing their resolutions, that doesn’t mean you should slack. Be your own motivator.
• But don’t beat yourself up – absolutely everyone falls off the wagon at some stage. Don’t get too down on yourself about it. Tomorrow’s a new day and a new opportunity to do better.