About those new year’s resolutions

I had some back and forth emails with our readers about new year’s resolutions. Let’s be honest, most people won’t keep them. It is an ambitious thought but when it comes down to it, bad habits are hard to break — more so when we don’t really want them broken. So what can you do to try make the empty promises last? We had some ideas.

If your goal is to workout more or use your cellphone less (remember my book Put Down Your Damn Phone Already) you can kill two birds with one stone.

Take away your own phone when the battery is almost drained. For most people that might happen after a full day’s use as evening rolls around. Tell yourself that you will go for a walk or a run or do some kind of physical activity while the device is charging.

Or even earn time on it by rewarding yourself. For example: If I want 20 minutes of Wi-Fi time to surf or send email, I have to use my treadmill for an equal amount of time. (Better yet, use it while on the treadmill.) If only they made phones that were charged solely by gym equipment we might solve the obesity crisis, hey?

My advice is to make a resolution two fold: make the change at the same time as cutting out something that will make you work hard to get it back — in the case of my example, it would be getting back your phone.

If your resolution is to cut out an expensive habit, calculate how much you are saving by not doing it anymore — be it smoking or gambling or drinking — and take the amount over a six-month period and buy yourself something expensive that you really want. After all, you’ve earned it, right?

So there we go. No excuses for not achieving your new year’s resolution in 2016 – unless, of course, you’ve already given up on it!