New Years & the Failure of Resolutions: Making Lasting Change

Are you wary, or flat-out skeptical of making resolutions because they rarely pan out?

New Year’s is a time for fresh starts & optimism, but it can feel like most goals don’t get achieved, & you might wonder “why bother?”

Try this: make a list of hopes for 2019. Then pick one small change you want to try, & start it. Then pick another one you want to start trying in March or April after you’ve gotten your January change pretty locked in as a habit. Then pick another change you’d like to make in July or August. A lot of times, we try to make all the changes we want for our lives all at once, & it’s a bit like taking 15 bags of groceries up the stairs in one go- stumble on one step and it all goes flying.

What if you think of New Year’s as a marker for when you set modest goals to begin at different points throughout the year & check in on last year’s goals, rather than a moment of massive overhaul where you attempt to become a completely different person all at once? You’ll be amazed at what you can achieve.& take care to think about goals you seem to set Every. Single. Year. & look at what went wrong in the past, whether it is reasonable. How might you approach it differently? Is it achievable? Should it be broken into smaller parts?

For example: If you have a goal of weight loss, & you usually resolve to start working out 5 days/week and eating a strict new diet. How long does that usually last for you? Maybe a month? What if in January you resolve to add 1 day of moderate exercise to your week with no other changes. Then in February, you add a 2nd day of exercise to your week. In March you cut back to sodas only on Saturdays, or switch to eating your meals off of smaller plates. In April, maybe you add another day of working out & you start putting half your food into takeout containers before you start eating your meal when you are at a restaurant. And on and on until you find yourself with a sustainable balance and actually see some results.

By the end of the year, you may be to the point where you are working out 5 days a week and following a strict diet- successfully and sustainably. If your goal is to obtain a habit by year’s end, rather than obtain it overnight & attempt to sustain it for a whole year (or forever) it’s going to be a rough go and your chances of success are diminished.

So instead of resolutions, write down your goals, & then break them into manageable pieces and assign reasonable (maybe even long) stretches of time to focus on each piece.

And if you find this difficult to do,

or you don’t know where to start,

or you’re not sure how to set a goal,

or you find yourself struggling,