5 TIPS TO RESTART AND ACHIEVE YOUR NEW YEARS GOALS
“It’s completely possible to change everything you ever thought about New Year’s resolutions in just a few minutes, and set you up to really smash your goals not just in January but for the whole year.”
Happy New Year! I know it’s already mid-February, but I want to talk about New Year’s resolutions. Before you all collectively groan and reach for your low-carb, low-sugar, super-food salad or equivalent (or wine and Ben & Jerry’s if January ended at the same time as your resolutions did!), I don’t want to talk about what exact resolutions you set. My Instagram feed was littered with pictures of healthy smoothies, people in gym gear that’s probably been in the loft since last February, and some slightly awkward newbie yoga poses, so I’ve already got a fairly good idea of what many people’s resolutions were! No, I want to talk about what lies BENEATH those resolutions, what it reveals about what you currently think about YOU and the world around you, and how this will determine the course of your entire year (for good or perhaps for not-so-good!).
It’s always struck me as slightly odd that in an entire year, a year with 12 new months and 52 new Mondays and 365 new mornings, we only ever set resolutions in January. I’ve never heard of anyone doing spring or autumn resolutions, mid-year readjustments or (unless weight-gain and excessive spending counts) December resolutions. The concept is practically non-existent. What is it about January then that makes us superhumanly able to achieve new things, that in the 11 other months of the year we are somehow unable to?
Well, nothing actually, it turns out. Recent news articles quote figures that only 8% of people actually stick to their New Year’s Resolutions – that’s close to 1 in 12 people. In fact, last Friday (12th January) was actually reported in a number of newspapers, rather unhelpfully, as ‘Quitters Day’, because it was statistically the day when the biggest number of people (apparently) ditch their new year’s resolutions and return to the old. If I was looking for a new fad diet or business strategy, and I found one with a success rate of 8%, it wouldn’t be top of my list. And yet, year on year, we all persist with the agonising ritual of these January resolutions. Maybe there’s no hope for us at all. Maybe we’re doomed to set and fail at New Year’s resolutions until the day we die and that’s that.
“It’s always struck me as slightly odd that in an entire year, a year with 12 new months and 52 new Mondays and 365 new mornings, we only ever set resolutions in January”
Thankfully (you can breathe a sigh of relief), that’s not the case at all! But getting your head around the concept of a traditional New Year’s resolution is in itself a big clue as to why so many of us struggle to stick to them. Despite those inevitable articles about how we fail at resolutions because we are unmotivated, are peer pressured into breaking them, or we set unachievable, sky-high goals that we simply can’t reach, those reasons aren’t really a full and accurate picture. You see, the common difficulty is that for many people, in order to set their New Year’s resolutions, they have to start with one, single, unhelpful line of thinking. Which is that the reason they need to set New Year’s resolutions this year, is because they believe that they messed up the previous year. And that if they commit to resolutions when everyone else does, they might somehow be more motivated/able to achieve them (and if they don’t, who cares, because everyone else gives theirs up as well so it’s ok…). It’s all rather defeatist, and therein lies the problem.
Just think about it for a minute. How many people do you see on New Year’s Eve, serenading out the previous year with cries of ‘thank goodness for that’, ‘what a s**t year’, and ‘good riddance to [insert date here], this year’s going to be MY year’? In comparison, you don’t see that many people standing around, glass in hand, going ‘what a shame that this year is ending, I would quite happily do another identical year and be blissfully happy next December.’ Or, if they’ve had a fantastic year (usually this is because someTHING big and wonderful has happened like a wedding or a baby, rather than because of personal progression, or how content they feel with life etc.), then you’ll often hear the inevitable ‘how is this year going to top last year? I’m never going to have another engagement/wedding/trip around the world, I’ve got nothing to look forward to, this year is going to be rubbish in comparison!’
It might seem like I’ve deviated from the point here. But actually this is the most important thing about a lot of New Year’s resolutions. For the most part, they are built (without us even realising it) on very negative feelings about ourselves and our previous year’s overall performance, so it’s really no surprise at all that we don’t have an awful lot of success with them. Many people even begin them thinking they’ll fail at them because they ‘always do’, they’re ‘rubbish at fitness’, or they’re ‘hopelessly addicted’ to smoking so won’t last long. Believing that we are bound to fail, and having no faith in our own abilities to achieve goals, then becomes a fait accomplis and before we know it, it’s 12th January and we’ve already announced failure and given up entirely for the year. The 8% that DO achieve them have one simple trick up their sleeve – they DON’T do this! They absolutely believe they can and will achieve their goal, and they therefore put in all the required effort, skills and resources to do so. For the remaining 92% - some may have skipped the ‘resolution’ part entirely, and not really resolved to do anything differently at all for fear of failure, stemming from low self esteem and low self belief.
Much like trying to build a stable house on a bed of soggy mud, how can we expect to set ourselves up to achieve our New Year’s goals, when they are based on fundamental assumptions about ourselves that are negative and disempowering? If we believe that we ‘must’ set new goals because we didn’t achieve last year, all we are doing is reinforcing that we believe last year was a failure, and therefore so are we. If we do New Year’s Resolutions in January because everyone else does, what does that say about our social confidence and how motivated and empowered we feel in our own skills and abilities to set and achieve goals ourselves, regardless of how many others are doing it or what month it is? As the saying goes, whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you are right.
“For the most part, New Year’s Resolutions are built (without us even realising it) on very negative feelings about ourselves and our previous year’s overall performance, so it’s really no surprise at all that we don’t have an awful lot of success with them”
Even the resolutions we set are indicative of how we feel about ourselves – weight loss (aka we don’t look good enough as we are), get fit (we are unhealthy), stop drinking or smoking (we have disgusting or overindulgent habits that we need to stop) all revolve around how we feel about ourselves (and behave) in front of others. You don’t hear many people looking back at the things that they made fantastic progress on last year and are going to build on this year. It’s all about ‘clean slates’ – get rid of our past failures and hope that a fresh start right back from zero does the trick. It’s like turning a computer off and on again – usually it does absolutely nothing to fix the underlying issue, it’s just a nice box-ticking exercise and before long without making any other changes to your computer you’re right back where you started.
If this sounds like something you and or someone you know has done/is doing, then don’t despair! It’s completely possible to change everything you ever thought about New Year’s resolutions in just a few minutes, and set you up to really smash your goals not just in January but for the whole year. Here’s 5 tips to get you right back on track with smashing your New Year’s resolutions;
RESET. Imagine right now, that somewhere next to where you are sitting, there is a big old reset button. I know it’s the middle of January. It seems a bit far-fetched to reset the year already. But I want you to mentally press it. Reset your thinking to zero, with the purpose of rebuilding it DIFFERENTLY from now on
GO BACK AND LOOK AT 2018 MORE POSITIVELY. I’m not asking for sunshine and rainbows even when it’s been an undeniably unfortunate year. Life happens, and papering over the messy parts with gold stars isn’t always helpful. But I’m asking for a more realistic appraisal of it. At the top of this blog, I’ve put together a list of things to start thinking about that will force you to look back more kindly, and realistically, on last year. Maybe some horrible, uncontrollable things have happened. But you coped, and you’re alive today. So what have you learned from it and how are you going to move forwards and upwards this year?
FOCUS ON BUILDING, NOT BEGINNING. It’s great to start a new hobby, to get back to the gym, to decide to ditch unhealthier habits like smoking. But the way you process it will be key to how successful you are at it. So rather than focus on what you’re starting from scratch, focus instead on what you’re BUILDING. What did you achieve last year, what skills and resources did you put into practice, that proves that you can do each of the New Year’s resolutions you set yourself? For example, ‘last year, I walked the dog every day, even if it was only for half an hour. I know I think that I did this because I had to, but nobody was actually holding a gun to my head and forcing me to do it. This shows that I’m dedicated to my dog, that I’m caring, and that I can commit to something every day if I really want to. I’m going to use these skills in setting a goal to go to the gym 3 days a week, which I now KNOW and have proved that I have the transferable skills and dedication to achieve.’
PROCESS EVERY STEP FORWARDS, NO MATTER HOW SMALL. The key to success isn’t actually that ‘moment’ when you’ve succeeded (whatever that ‘moment’ actually is…). It’s all the little gains, that snowball into more and more progress. Not recognising your progress, even the tiniest moments of victory, could be the difference between you maintaining momentum to continue moving forwards and you throwing the towel in by believing that you’ve already failed. So why not write a positives list every day, and put 10 things on it that you’ve achieved, that you’re pleased with or proud of, and that have pushed you even one inch closer to your goals that day?
ENJOY THE RIDE! It’s true when they say life’s about the journey not the destination. Rather than sitting and staring wistfully out at where you think the grass looks greener, start processing the here and now. What does the grass on your side actually look like, without s**t-tinted specs clouding your vision? What have you enjoyed about your day today? Who made you smile or laugh? What are you grateful for? What things are you proud of yourself for? What skills are you building? As the old saying goes, your life today is a gift – that’s why it’s called the present. You just have to be looking in the right place to see it!
WANT TO KNOW MORE?
If these tips have struck a chord, and you want to know more about how you can begin learning to Thrive this year, get in touch with me and I’d love to help!