Dear Melissa,
I just started the January Whole30 as my New Year’s resolution. I’ve read (and done) everything you’ve written on planning and preparation! But I’m still nervous. I’ve abandoned so many goals and new habits in the past. Do you have any extra advice for making this year’s resolutions stick? —Nervous in the New Year
Dear Nervous,
Happy New Year, and congratulations! You’re one of millions of people who are starting the January Whole30 today. Whether it’s your first Whole30 or your fifth, planning and preparation are, in fact, the keys to success. But unless you hold boundaries around your goals and plans, your resolutions will be hard to achieve.
This phenomenon isn’t unique to January. Many people find the initial motivation and excitement of any resolution—whether it’s doing a Whole30, journaling, reading more books, or starting an exercise program—naturally wears off in a week or two. Even if you have a plan for your Whole30 or gym sessions, if you’re not purposefully creating space (physical, mental, and emotional) for your new habits, other areas of life will creep in, take up that space, and push your initiatives aside.
Let’s talk about two specific, actionable boundary-adjacent strategies to help you stay consistent with whatever resolutions you’ve set for 2025. (These will be especially helpful for your Whole30!)
Strategy 1: Employ the pause
One of my foundational habit strategies is don’t say yes to anything automatically. Turn this into a black-and-white rule (meaning you always do this, instead of sometimes doing this), because that makes it easier for the brain to follow.
To maintain your New Year’s resolution or any new goal, you’ll need to protect your time, energy, and space. If you don’t, others (or yourself) may end up eroding your healthy behaviors and intentions. And that’s far more likely to happen if you immediately agree to everyone else’s requests just to be nice, avoid conflict, or gain their approval.
From now on, don’t agree to anything on the spot. The length of your pause will depend on the context—it may be a few moments, or a few hours, or a few days, but you always pause.
- Them: “Come out for happy hour after work?”
You: “Thanks for the invite! I’ll let you know at the end of the day if I can make it.”
Give yourself time and space to determine if you have the confidence to go and order sparkling water, or if the pressure or temptation will be too strong to stick to your goals. - Them: “Want to come over and watch the game tomorrow night?”
You: “Ooh, fun—I’ll let you know in an hour.”
Then evaluate whether (and how) your goals can work around a late night. If you’re in, plan the dish you might bring, what time you’ll need to leave to get enough sleep, or how to tell the host you’re doing the Whole30 right now. - Them: “Can you watch the kids on Saturday?”
You: “I’ll let you know by tomorrow morning.”
Check in with yourself first. Will giving up your Saturday throw your plans or goals off-track? Can you work around them—and are you happily willing to babysit? If so, make a plan for hitting the gym and eating a Whole30 lunch around your time with the kids.
It might not seem like a big deal to say yes to these things (and put your own plans on the back burner), but these add up fast. Pretty soon, you haven’t read a page/done a workout/cooked a Whole30 meal in a week—and your resolution is out the window. Employing the pause here will also help you ingrain the next strategy more easily, and round out a solid foundation for your new healthy habits.
Strategy 2: Set yourself up to win
Your second concrete strategy is to make checking off your New Year’s resolution near-effortless, day after day. This concept, which Dr. B.J. Fogg calls ”tiny habits,” allows you to build consistency with the habit while accumulating small wins.
With any new habit, consistency is key. In the beginning, it doesn’t matter how many pages you read, how far you run, or how fancy you make your Whole30 breakfast—only that you do the thing you said you were going to do consistently. Once the habit becomes ingrained, it’s much easier to do more or add to it. Here are examples of tiny wins around common New Year’s resolutions:
- Whole30: Commit to putting only Whole30 food in your mouth. That’s it! It doesn’t have to be a recipe and you can eat the same meal three days in a row. If it’s Whole30, go ahead and eat it.
- Boundaries: Check in with yourself once a day to ask, “What do I need, how do I feel, what would make me feel comfortable?” Even if you don’t act on those needs, you’ve accomplished your goal.
- Reading: Commit to reading one paragraph a day or listening for two minutes while you brush your teeth. That’s all you need to be a daily reader!
- Exercising: Commit to two minutes of movement a day. Maybe it’s climbing up and down your stairs, walking up and down your driveway, or doing sets of 10 squats throughout the day. Congrats, you moved your body!
- Journaling: Commit to writing one sentence a day. Even if it’s, “I don’t know what to write today.” One sentence means success!
There’s a trick here, though—can you see it? If you’re committing to these tiny wins, you will need to plan and prepare for them. What will you eat for your next Whole30 lunch—do you have food, or will you need to shop? When will you check in with yourself—as part of your morning routine, at lunch, or before bed? When and where will you read, exercise, or journal? Tying it to an existing habit (like listening to a book when you brush your teeth, doing lunch prep while you watch Netflix after dinner, or doing 10 squats every time you go to the bathroom) is an easy way to keep it consistent.
Bonus Tip: Create boundaries that stick. Protecting your time and energy is key to Whole30 success. The Book of Boundaries offers practical scripts and strategies to help you say no with confidence and keep your resolutions on track.
Putting it together
It seems like eating leftovers for lunch, reading one paragraph, or doing two minutes of walking up and down stairs isn’t going to be enough to get you to your health goal. But often, resolutions fail because our goals are too grand, too demanding, or too numerous. If it’s your first Whole30, planning to cook a different recipe for every meal is setting yourself up for exhaustion, frustration, and failure. A list that’s a mile long (I’m going to read and work out and do the Whole30) burns you out even faster.
Instead, make the habit itself the goal. Create a habit of reaching for Whole30 foods. Create the habit of carving out two minutes for movement. Create the habit of always having a book nearby. Then, practice holding onto the time, space, and energy to uphold those tiny habits by employing a pause, checking in with ourselves, and holding our boundaries. If you can make this happen consistently, trust me—the rest will follow.
Habits don’t change overnight, especially when they’re uncomfortable. But these two concrete actions can help you create the foundation of your new year’s goals, and offer you a specific plan to help you truly succeed with your January Whole30 and other New Year’s resolutions.
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