New Year's Resolutions Often Set Us Up To Fail. Here Are 8 Tips For Success.
It’s that time of year! Everyone is taking stock of how close they’ve come to meeting their goals, which, in our high-tech world, often means collecting and analyzing data. Soon folks will be posting how many books they’ve read, steps they’ve walked or miles they’ve run. And many of us will set goals for the new year that can be measured in pounds, minutes or miles.
But like hungry shoppers at the grocery store, our desires tend to be bigger than our capacities. We have trouble envisioning realistic goals that are achievable in just 12 months and often end up abandoning them not long into the new year.
Not all resolutions are bound to fail, however. We asked a couple of experts about ways to frame resolutions that maximize the chances of success.
Harness the power of your intrinsic motivation.
“I think resolutions often focus on actions we ‘should’ take, like losing weight, eating healthier or saving money,” Ellen Hendriksen, a psychologist and author of the forthcoming “How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists,” told HuffPost. There’s nothing wrong with having these goals, she explained, but “sustaining them without genuine internal motivation will be challenging.”
One example might be to exercise three times a week. If the motivation behind this goal is “Because it would be good for me” or “I should really lose some weight,” Hendriksen explained, you’re less likely to follow through. However, if your motivation comes from true, internal desire — “I like how I feel after I lift weights,” “It’s satisfying to see the number on the scale go down,” “I’m excited to challenge myself” or “I get to hang out with my gym friends” — you’ll have more drive to stick with it.
“Find the part of your habit change that feels freely chosen and focus on that,” Hendriksen advised.
Any resolutions that are based on external pressure, or what someone else wants you to do, are going to be hard to stick with for this same reason.
Focus on changing habits rather than outcomes.
It’s good to begin with the end in mind, but lofty goals will lack the step-by-step specifics that will bring you from point A to point B.
“A lot of times, people’s goals are about an outcome and not a habit change,” Israa Nasir, psychotherapist and author of “Toxic Productivity: Reclaim Your Time and Emotional Energy in a World That Always Demands More,” told HuffPost. “They’ll say things like, I want to lose X amount of weight, but the goal is really the habit change that will get you there.”
Weight loss may be a result of creating new habits, but it’s putting those habits in place — for example, cooking dinner at home four nights every week — that you have to focus on first in order to get there.
“You actually have to think about what you can change in your day-to-day in order to meet that goal,” Nasir said.
Focus on what you can control.
Some things are simply out of our hands. Writers, for example, might set a goal of writing a certain number of minutes, words or pages per day — making a habit of chipping away at the work— rather than aiming to appear in a particular publication or winning an award.
In the same way, a person who wants to get more sleep may not be able to control precisely when they drift off — but they can commit to turning off their phone at the same time every evening.
Relationship goals — such as finding a partner or getting married — are also tricky, because they depend on so many things outside of your control. “Make more concrete goals, like, ‘I want to put myself out there more by joining a community group,’” Nasir advised. Otherwise, she continued, “it can be very disheartening and discouraging.”
Don’t expect good feelings to come immediately.
There’s a reason we return to our bad habits. Fried foods are delicious, and it’s relaxing and pleasant to curl up on the couch after a long day. But we shouldn’t expect following through with a resolution to make us feel better right away.
“We enjoy our bad habits in the moment, even if they work against us long-term,” Hendriksen said.
Instead of focusing on how we feel, “evaluate your success by looking at your actions,” she continued.
“Did you fulfill your intention? Did you do the thing? Then that’s a success. The good feelings will catch up over the long-term as you start to see the payoff from your efforts.”
Be realistic about all of the variables involved.
People tend to get carried away with ideas such as “new year, new you” and ignore all of the factors involved in making this change in their life.
“There’s this magical thinking element where people are like, the clock will strike midnight and I’m just gonna change everything about myself: my sense of discipline, my inner workings, my emotional dynamics, my lifestyle. The obstacles in my life will disappear and I’ll be able to achieve this,” Nasir said.
If you’re not realistic about who you are and the challenges you’re currently up against, your goal will remain out of reach. Instead of aiming to overhaul your whole life, focus on one, small, actionable thing you can do each day to get you a little closer to where you want to be.
Work in increments.
Having a short-term goal and a plan to reassess can help you stay realistic. “Incremental habit change is so much better as a resolution,” Nasir said.
This might look something like starting out with 15 minutes of exercise three days a week in January, with a plan to check in and perhaps increase this to 20 minutes in February and 30 minutes in March.
Frame goals positively.
Focus on what you’re going to do — not what you’re forbidden from doing. For example, if your goal is to eat healthier foods, instead of prohibiting junk food, you might aim to include five servings of fruits and vegetables each day or bring your own lunch to work four days a week.
“Thinking about what you shouldn’t do or what you don’t want to do really activates shame, and that can become a big barrier for people,” Nasir said.
“Think about what you want in terms of a benefit, as opposed to what you want to avoid because it’s shameful or bad,” she continued.
Have a flexible mindset.
Incremental goals are helpful, as is the ability to adapt to the challenges that will inevitably come.
Instead of being “militant,” Nasir advised, “aim for an 80% success rate when you’re first starting a new habit.” It’s helpful to track your progress, so that you can reassess, but aiming for 80% leaves you more flexibility and won’t evoke as much shame.
Also, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. “If you only have 30 minutes one day, don’t skip the 60-minute workout because you can’t get the 60. Just do the 30 minutes. Have this flexible mindset around your habit change that’s going to embolden you and increase your self-confidence in getting something done,” Nasir said.
She suggests that rather than holding ourselves to reaching specific outcomes, we think of resolutions “as intentions and guidelines of how you want to live your life. What are the changes you want to see in your life? What are the things you want to improve in? What are the things that give you joy?”
Keep these intentions in mind so that when you slip up, you can reassess and try again, regardless of what month of the year it is. There’s no rule that says you have to wait until next January to make a positive change in your life.
