For many, New Years Day is an important day of the year because it’s when their New Years resolutions kick in. It’s the end of an old year, and that sometimes means a significant end to a hard or troubling time. New Years can seem like a re-birth of sorts and allow you the opportunity to push a reset button on your life and habits.

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Personally, I’ve never been a big New Year’s resolution maker. My mentality is, “why wait?”. Why wait for New Year’s Day to work on myself. If there is something that needs changing, I like to address it in the present.

However, a new year provides a good starting point for creating resolutions, or goals, and sticking to them. Unfortunately, only about 5% of people actually stick to their resolution once they’ve made it.

Here are some tips for writing resolutions that will work and keep you inspired throughout the year.

How to Write  Resolutions To Inspire You Throughout the Year

Resolutions Don’t Have to Begin on New Year’s Day

If you need to tweak something in your life, why wait for New Year’s to do it? Sure, a new year offers a clean slate so to speak but it’s just a day of the year. If you really need that “new year” mentality to make a fresh start, there are plenty of other dates throughout the year that you could use. Your birthday is one idea. Chinese New Year is another. Also, you could pick a random day off the calendar and make that your Resolution Day. It will be your own, personal self-improvement day and every year you can evaluate how much progress you’ve made on achieving your goals.

“Shoulds” have NO PLACE in a Good Resolution

Let’s just banish the word ‘should’ from our vocabulary, mmmkay? It serves no purpose except to make us feel bad or guilty about our life.  You should  save more money, you should lose weight, you should call your mother. Ugh – just writing these “shoulds” makes me feel icky.

Instead, of worrying about what the world tells you you’re supposed to do, try worrying about the things you TRULY WANT. Block out other people’s voices, needs, and wishes for what they want you to do and only focus on what you want to do. This isn’t selfish, it’s self preservation. You’ll get your life together on your own terms and when you’re ready. So stop worrying about what the world says and worry about what your heart says. Only when you do that, will you really start making any progress on your goals and resolutions.

Get Specific on What You Really Want Out of Your Resolution

Get very clear about what you truly want out of life. Get comfy, get a pen, and write down all the things that are really, truly important to you. Get specific. What brings you joy and happiness? What lights up your soul? These are the areas to focus on when you are creating your goals and resolutions.

Have Fun With It!

Life doesn’t have to be super serious all the time and neither does self-improvement. Mix a few lighthearted resolutions in with your serious ones. Never figured out how to tie a cherry stem with your tongue? Add that to the list. Want to have a snowball fight but you live in the desert? Add that to your list too (if of course one of your goals is taking a trip up North.) Include fun things that will enrich your life while also lightening your spirit.

Resolutions Aren’t a Wish List

Avoid creating a resolution list that is more of a wish-list than an actual set of attainable goals. Instead, make your resolutions things that you want to accomplish but that are slightly outside of your reach at the present moment. If you set resolutions that are just ridiculously unobtainable in a years time, you’ll only end up disappointed. I’m not telling you to sell yourself short but I am telling you to be realistic. Setting a 5 million dollar goal for a business that doesn’t exist is a little far-fetched. Instead, set a $100,000 goal for a business that you will create this year. That’s still ambitious but not completely out of the question.