Yes, as it may be hard to believe, another new year has begun. 2024 is up and running and many of us are off to starting our New Year’s resolution? Might you be one of them?

Top 2024 Resolutions

From a poll of 1,000 adults during last December 2023, some of the top 2024 resolutions include:

• Saving more money
• Exercising more
• Improving physical health
• Eating healthier
• Losing weight
• Improving mental health
• Being happy

Ways to Make Your Resolution More Accessible for Success

How can resolutions be more sustainable? Another way of thinking of this, what can help our new year’s resolution become more accessible to raise the chance of success? Thesaurus.com lists “reachable” as a synonym of “accessible.” So, what would help to create more accessible, more reachable resolutions?

Here’s some suggestions that may help raise the chance of reaching new year’s resolution successfully:

• Start with small, realistic goals. As you may have an ultimate end goal set to reach this year, start with breaking it down to smaller, more reachable goals. This can help build a clearer path to follow as well as multiple wins throughout this journey. For example, what would you like to reach by the end of each week and/or each month?
• Make it a routine. With anything you want to start, change, or improve with, developing a specific routine can help keep you on track. Setting a dedicated time and/or place can be the start of building or adjusting a regular routine that can help raise the chance of further success.
• Consider digital reminders or apps. Our mobile device(s) are often only an arm’s reach away, whether a smartphone, smartwatch, and/or tablet. Take advantage of its ease of access. There are features already available on mobile devices and related apps that can be installed to help. Setting reminders, recording progress, and accessing virtual support are just a few ways they can help you stay on track.
• Find a friend for accountability and/or a teammate. Whether in-person or virtual, there are others interested in accomplishing similar resolutions for this new year. Take advantage of it. Whether with a personal friend or by connecting to new friends virtually through a related online community, you can share, support, and learn together. This can be additional sources of ears to talk to and potential boosts of motivation when low on your own.
• Track your progress and celebrate small victories. Related to #1, track your progress of accomplishing those smaller, reachable goals. Acknowledge achievements and celebrate those small victories when met. Consider journaling to refer to later and reward yourself before aiming to reach your next small victory.
• Focus on the benefits, not just the outcome. This step can help you see past the “how” to reach the outcome and see the “why” this is important. Returning to the consideration of journaling your progress, this is one way you can see how your achievements so far are benefiting you. In addition, along this resolution journey, try to visualize future benefits that continuous progress can bring.
• Stay positive, be patient, and give yourself grace. As referred to already, this is a journey that takes time. Patience, positivity, and grace are important components for success. 

  1. Patience: Each small goal and victory reached takes time. New daily routines to become habits take time. Patience can be very difficult to provide ourselves at time, but patience can be considered a base component to help the level of positivity and grace to be stronger.

  2. Positivity: Back to benefits and progress achieved, think positively about what you have accomplished and be proud of yourself. Like patience, staying positive about us fulfilling our resolution can be difficult, especially if we are not meeting specific goals the ways we planned. Allow individual goal flexibility to continue to spark pride and increase positivity as much as possible.

  3. Grace: Provide self-compassion for times those positive feelings are missing but, rather, feelings of frustration or anger exist. Acknowledge that it is OK if you don’t reach certain goals every time. Forgive yourself and continue forward. Consider grace as the recharging component on hand needed during more challenging moments of this journey.

• Don’t give up hope. Many of the steps above apply to your mental capacity and effort to reach your new year’s resolution. Returning to keeping your resolution accessible and reachable, there may come a time that it feels like you hit a roadblock and you can’t continue forward. Refer to step 4 regarding others for support. For a large feat, such as many new year’s resolutions, support from others may be necessary to help progress to continue.
• Reflect on your progress. As this is the last item listed, this should regularly occur throughout the time of your resolution. Instead of go-go-going with it, take time to reflect on your progress and identify areas for improvement. Returning to a sense of a roadblock, that roadblock may be true. If so, as in the previous section, don’t give up hope and do not quit. Instead, embrace the success met so far while acknowledging it is OK to adjust the plan (grace). From reflection and support, what is the more reachable, accessible path to shift towards to continue success?

2024 Success: Here We Come!

If you are one that is aiming to succeed with a 2024 New Year’s resolution, go for it and best of luck!

Maybe you are pondering on a New Year’s resolution or just wanting to continue to improve your professional skills throughout 2024. If so, consider increasing your understanding of digital accessibility and its importance to your specific work. Visit our USC Digital Accessibility Toolbox to gain an overview. Skim our past blog posts, which include “Improve your Accessibility with Siteimprove” and “Microsoft Accessibility Checker: Boost your Document Accessibility Confidence” articles.

Best wishes for a positive travel along our 2024 paths ahead!