So have you been able to keep your New Year’s resolutions of the last year? If not, did you make wise resolutions for the New Year?

You likely already have all the knowledge and tools required to keeping resolutions. All it takes is an idea of how to use that and the motivation to start.

If you’re uncertain about where to start and have a bad record of breaking New Year’s resolutions from previous years, let us show you how it can be done. After all, you don’t want to end up doing it like this guy:

Making Good Resolutions and the Right Attitude

If you need some help in making wise resolutions and setting your mind right to sticking to them, I recommend reading the articles How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions and 10 Tips for Keeping New Year’s Resolutions on eHow and About.com, respectively. Briefly, they recommend to…

• be realistic and aim low
• keep the number of resolutions down, don’t overload yourself
• plan ahead and outline your plan
• tell everyone you know, so they can remind you
• when in danger of failing, make a pros and cons list for motivation
• keep talking about your resolutions
• track your progress
• reward yourself
• don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, some failure is OK
• make an effort to stick to your resolutions
• wait until spring for making resolutions
• keep trying and start anew anytime of the year

Reminders

As a regular reader of MakeUseOf you have all the necessary tools at your fingertips. But a ton of tools is roughly a ton too much. So let’s focus on a few good tools to keep you at your heels.

HassleMe (directory)

HassleMe will constantly send eMail reminders at random intervals, so you never know when the reminder will pull you out of your mental nap.

Resnooze (directory)

With Resnooze you can set up daily, weekly or monthly eMail reminders for recurring tasks. Of course it can serve as a reminder service for keeping your New Year’s resolutions. In each eMail you can edit the frequency or delete the reminder.

Remindr (directory)

Remindr can send simultaneous reminders on Twitter, Jabber, GTalk, your eMail and cell phone. Very simple to set up, however it has to be set up again and again.

Track Your Progress

Qwitter (directory)

Qwitter will help you quit smoking. On the website you can track how many cigarettes you are smoking each and every day, keep a journal to record your state of mind, view your progress and share the experience with others.

The great thing about Qwitter is that it’s fully integrated with Twitter. A Twitter account is actually required to sign into Qwitter. So you can easily hook up with your friends and have them motivate you.

Gyminee (article from Anthony)

If your resolution is to eat better and work out, Gyminee is for you. Gyminee provides workout programs, you can track your workouts, monitor your diet, keep a food diary, meet people who are doing the same and track your progress, for example on your iPhone and pass challenges until you reach your goals.

traineo

If you want to eat better and lose weight, you should have a look at this website. During the sign-up process you can select in which units (American, British, Metric) your progress will be measured, also your current weight and height, goal weight and time frame will be recorded. Finally, you can choose motivators by entering the names and eMail addresses of up to 3 friends or family members.

When that is done you can track your activities, the food you had during the day, your weight, keep a log and reframe your goals. Your progress is relentlessly recorded in pretty graphs.

Will you stick to your New Year’s resolutions this year? Let us know whether you already made it last year and how you made it!

Picture Credits: v_hujer, woodsy

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Why is it that it is so hard to stick to resolutions and reach personal goals?

For one I believe many resolutions or goals aren’t realistic. Even if they are realistic, simply setting a goal isn’t enough. You must split up the path to reaching your goal into many small steps; you must identify the possible pitfalls that could lead to failure and you must prepare for them, at least roughly; finally, you must take into account that things will change with time, hence your path or your goal may change and you must be willing to adapt in time.

Now, once you are ready to pursue your goals and make a commitment, there is one more thing you can do to motivate or put some more pressure onto yourself: tell others about it!

With stickK, you can make a contract with yourself, set the stakes, choose a referee and have friends or fellow stickKers support you. The service is based on economic and behavioral research showing that people are more likely to achieve a goal if they put something at stake, which will be lost in the case of failure. In the case of stickK that would be money.

You can select a preset from a list of common goals or create your custom commitment with the details being all up to you.

Setting the stakes is the interesting part, although it’s optional. If you decide to put money at stake, you are required to pay the full amount upfront directly to stickK. You will receive back incentives as you’re reaching your goal, and the total amount will be paid back as the commitment is completed. If you fail to reach your goal or parts of it, that money will go to a charity or anti-charity of stickK’s choice.

Frankly, I cannot recommend to put money at stake under these circumstances. The company has little reputation, apart from being founded by a Yale student and two of his professors. What bothers me is that they are choosing who will receive the money from a preset list of their choice, they are not handing out tax receipts (to minimize book keeping), they will subtract transaction fees, they will donate only a portion to supported charities at the end of each quarter, while the rest will go to stickK user sponsored and voted for (charity) events.

Overall, the FAQ sounds a bit fishy to me, and it’s clear that apart from financing the project with ads, they are also going to use the money in their favor, if only to let it gain interest. Quite obviously, a Yale professor for economics would be pretty stupid, if he didn’t make sure the money worked for them. But this is not mentioned in the FAQ. Also, if the money gains interest for up to three months, why do they still need to subtract the transaction fees and how much is that going to be?

My suggestion is to put something better than money at stake, for example annoying chores that you will complete for an unknowing individual under the supervision of your referee. Unfortunately, there is no way to add something like this to the contract, even if you create a custom goal.

Other than that I do recommend this service. Especially picking a friend or a family member as referee and gaining supporters from the community will help you go through with the commitment. If you make yourself accountable, you are increasing your chances of beating your weaker self.

What are your experiences with resolutions? What has helped you to set the right goals and achieve them? Please share in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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