5 tips for creating resolutions you'll actually stick to
New Year, New Me....Not Exactly
As we approach the new year, there’s lots of talk about resolutions and creating positive changes in our lives. Of course, as a therapist, I’m all for positive changes. The thing is, when we try to change everything at once, we often find that we are overwhelmed and don’t change anything at all. Think about your typical resolution list. So many people are coming up with a long list of life-changing resolutions. Lose weight, exercise more, drink more water, stop smoking, eat healthier, spend more time with family, work less, make more money, volunteer, pay off debt, etc. I’m overwhelmed just typing that all out. We’re essentially planning to change everything about ourselves at the stroke of midnight. The things we commonly want to change are habits and patterns that we have had for years and years. It is incredibly challenging to change even one of those overnight, much less a laundry list of them at the same time. Here are a few tips to make your resolutions a reality.
Focus. When we are trying to do several things at once, we usually end up half-assing most of them. If you focus on one particular goal at a time, you are much more likely to succeed with that because your focus and energy are all channeled in that direction (the exception to this is when two habits are biologically linked. For example, research shows that quitting nicotine and alcohol/drugs is best done together because they affect the same receptors and therefore continuing to do one while quitting the other can cause triggering/relapse. That’s a conversation for a different post though). For the most part, focusing on one goal and putting all your energy into that will create better results. You can then move on to other goals.
Make the goal SMART. You’ve probably heard this before but this is important. Making the goal SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Based) will help you to not only create goals that you will be able to achieve but it also allows you to determine whether you met the goal or not. For example if your goal is to “spend less time on social media” it may be hard to determine if you have met the goal or not. On the other hand, if you make the goal “decrease the number of hours I spend on social media daily from 3 to 1” then you are able to objectively determine if you did that or not.
Build on small successes. This is a way to keep your motivation up. If your goal is to save $1000 over the next 6 months, set several smaller goals and celebrate each one. This will allow you to have small wins along the way and keep you motivated toward your ultimate goal.
Banish all or nothing thinking. This is the type of thinking that gets us off track and totally demoralizes us. An example of this is if you wanted to stop spending money on fast food for 1 month. On the 7th of the month, you are hungry and decide to grab something from a drive thru. You then have 2 choices: get back on board with your goal even though you’ve had a small slip up or give up the goal completely because you messed up. The all or nothing thinking says “I messed up once so I might as well just eat fast food the rest of the month” whereas the other choice says “I made a mistake but I’m getting back on track.” Which do you think will get you closer to the ultimate goal? Of course, the second version of that ends in you eating fast food once whereas the all or nothing version has you giving up all together and possibly eating fast food everyday for the rest of the month.
Give yourself a break. This is similar to #4. You don’t have to be perfect and most likely, if you’re human, you won’t be. It’s okay. When you make a mistake, acknowledge it and the feelings that come with it but try not to beat yourself up. Remind yourself of the progress you’ve made and that you can continue to make great progress despite one minor mistake. Talk to yourself as you would a friend or a child who made a mistake. Having compassion for yourself leads to better results than being very hard on yourself. This is a process to unlearn as we have often been taught “no pain, no gain” and other such mantras that lead us to believe that we have to be really tough on ourselves to see results. The opposite is actually true.
Once you’ve achieved a goal using these principles, you can then begin to focus on another goal. By that time, this goal will have become a habit and you will focus completely on your next one. I hope this helps and that everyone has a wonderful New Year!