It’s almost the end of the first week in January, and already you may be noticing that your motivation levels are starting to decline. You had such big plans for 2018, and here you are a week in, already feeling bad about yourself for not sticking to them perfectly.

So what can you do to turn things around? It’s as simple as 1, 2, 3.

1: Change your standards of measurement

How do you measure success… is it perfection? Change it up. Instead adopting an 80% rule can not only lead to incredible benefits for you, but also a higher likelihood that you are going to keep making these changes long term. If 80% of the time you stick to the plan, then you can actual enjoy yourself when you deviate from it on occasion.

Said you will exercise every day but did 5 days instead? Well done! Now really maximise that downtime on the days you have off and enjoy every minute.

2: Shorten your list

Do you have a lot of resolutions you are working on? Choose the three that will have the biggest impact on your life, and stick to those. Having too many resolutions means that you end up feeling too restricted, too pressures, and is a pretty impossible standard to maintain. So keep it short.

3: Ditch the hard ones

Have you set yourself resolutions that are going to be incredibly difficult to achieve, and that deep down you know that there is no way that you could ever get there? The danger in this is that is sets you up for failure, which makes you have less confidence in yourself, and makes you less likely to succeed in the future. Instead tone down your resolutions so that the overall goal is actually reasonable, can be done in the time frame that you set for yourself, and that isn’t going to make your life so miserable that it can’t be maintained.

Fingers crossed that working through this list gets you on a better path to achieving your health goals in 2018.