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Make New Year Resolutions Stick: Ridgewood Expert Shares 'Doable' Ideas

RIDGEWOOD, N.J. --Thinking about your new year's resolutions?

Tom Kersting is the founder and owner of Valley Family Counseling LLC in Ridgewood.

Tom Kersting is the founder and owner of Valley Family Counseling LLC in Ridgewood.

Photo Credit: Submitted

According to Statistica, 45 percent of us make resolutions, though only 8 percent of us succeed in sticking to them. 

Let 2017 be different. Here, Upper Saddle River resident Tom Kersting, a nationally renowned psychotherapist, author and television personality and the founder and owner of Valley Family Counseling LLC in Ridgewood, offers the following do-able suggestions to get you off to the right start.

  • Unplug the devices and get back to the basics with your family. The average parent has 3.5 minutes per week of meaningful conversation with their children. Let's reconnect with our kids and spouses by disconnecting from our devices
  • Make a personal appointment with "self" everyday. Add "yourself" to your agenda book each day. That means clearing out 15 minutes from your schedule, finding a quiet place and becoming one with your mind and emotions. Silence is the miracle grow for the mind and emotions.
  • Make a mirror commitment to start exercising. Yes, look at your reflection in the mirror and make a contract with yourself to carve out 30 minutes per day to get physical. If this means waking up earlier four or five times per week, do it and keep your contract.
  • Don't think before you act - act before you think. Procrastinators think, think and think, instead of taking action. Make a commitment to do what you need to do "NOW," not later. Getting into this habit will break your habit of procrastination. You will become a doer rather than a delayer.
  • Become a thinker. Niche' once said, "We are under the presumption that we are thinking but in reality we are being thought." In other words, our thoughts control us rather than us controlling them. Becoming mindful means becoming conscious, becoming present and therefore directing your mind where you want it to go instead of it controlling where you go.

Kersting, the co-host of two former A&E Network television series, "Surviving Marriage and "Monster-In-Laws" and a regular contributor for Fox News, is also the author of two books, "Losing Weight When Diets Fail" and "Disconnected: How To Reconnect Our Digitally Distracted Kids." Go to www.tomkersting.com for more information.

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