The Formula for Successful New Year’s Resolutions
How many New Year’s Resolutions are made every January 1st and by February 1st are forgotten about? Everyone knows at least one person that makes a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight, eat healthy foods or start working out. The first week of January gyms are flooded to capacity, and grocery carts are overflowing with “healthy foods”. Everyone jumps into their resolutions with full vigor and then over the course of a few weeks that vigor disappears. A stressful day, an invitation out to dinner, or a gym bag accidentally left at home, are just a few of the possible things that can happen to derail the resolution, leaving behind feelings of disappointment or even failure. Once these feelings arrive it is difficult to fight them off and the resolution is pushed aside to “maybe next week, which then moves to next month, and then next year. Why? Because a goal without a why has very little meaning. If someone says that they are going to save money, it’s natural to ask why they want to save money. The person says they don’t have a reason they just want to save money. How realistic is it to believe that this person will save a sizeable amount of money if any? If they are naturally a very disciplined person it may happen but this type of person is a very small minority. Now, if a person says that they are going to save money in order to buy a car, go on vacation, or buy a house, it is realistic to believe that this person will achieve their goal of saving money because they have a strong reason (why) for saving money. The goal is to save money, and the why is to buy a car/vacation/house. The success stories that you hear from new year’s resolutions have a strong why behind them.
‘I’m going to start exercising twice a week because my blood pressure is high and I want to reduce my risk of having a stroke so that I can increase the likelihood that I will be able to see my kids graduate from college, get married, and have families of their own.’
‘I’m going to reduce eating out to only once a week because I want to save money for my wedding.’
Successful resolutions are also specific. Did you pick up on the specificity of the above resolutions? Read them again. They tell you exactly what their plan is. It is specific and measurable. If number one does not exercise twice in one week they will know that they did not hit their goal. Number one has also made it much easier to share a successful resolution story because they can create a plan for how to add exercise twice a week to their schedule. Number one is also motivated to lower their blood pressure because they want to better their chance of enjoying many years with their family. Number one is also able to celebrate their wins each week when they complete their goal of exercising twice which is another motivator to keep working towards their goal. If number one had only stated ‘I’m going to start exercising.’, with no specifics and no why, then there is no motivation or drive to fall back on when fatigue hits, when the gym bag is accidentally left at home, or unexpected plans come up. There is no way to track if they are being successful with their resolution. For example, if they exercised three times in week 1, once in week 2, none in week 3, once in week 4, and none in week 5...is this successful? Maybe, maybe not. It for sure isn’t very consistent. They have no specifics stated to allow them to track their success and celebrate their wins.
Taking baby steps towards a bigger lifestyle change or goal can help the chances of success as well. Going from no exercise to twice a week is much easier to start with than five times a week. Then slowly build up to five times a week as you adjust to your goal. Adding one extra fruit and vegetable each day is much easier than radically changing every meal to a healthy meal. Slowly switch unhealthier food options out for healthier ones. Celebrate the wins. When you have a setback, and you will, because we are human and we cannot control every single thing that life throws at us, acknowledge it as a brief setback and then resume right back where you left off. Don’t allow setbacks to derail you from all of your progress.
If you want to become part of the minority of people that are successful with new year’s resolutions have a strong why behind it and make sure it’s specific and measurable. Break down large goals and lifestyle changes into small baby steps and celebrate all of your wins along the way.
Happy New Year!
