It’s a New Year: Where Do I Start?

TheResolve to End Failed Resolutions

It’s a new year!  If you are like me, and many others, at somepoint in recent weeks, you have been a bit reflective - what did I do well lastyear?  What do I hope to do better thisyear?  If you haven’t taken the time tothink about this and you are still reading, maybe take a minute to do so now.

Human nature is to focus on all the ways inwhich we aren’t ______ (fill in the blank) rather than all the ways we are______ (fill in the blank).  We tend toview the world, thanks in part to social media, through a lens of ‘Wow, peopleI know seem to have it all, and I can’t even manage to ______ (fill in theblank).’  We are wired to have anegativity bias - a colleague once explained this phenomenon to me by sayingnegative thoughts and experiences are like Velcro while positive ones are likeTeflon. 

TraditionalChoices With Predictable Results

BUT it’s a new year, so this year I am goingto do x, y and z, doubts and negative self-talk be damned.  This process is exhilarating, filled withhope and promise that this year will be better than the last.  Taking action feels good.  More often than not, these goals are lofty but also a bitvague.  I was chatting with my friendKate the other day about past resolutions she had made.  As a parent of young children, she resolvedto “be more present.”  When the 1strolled around the next year, she’d decided she was “going to worry less andlaugh more.”  Realizing that she might bemore successful if she made a more ‘tangible’ resolution, the following year,she resolved to “get in shape.”  As wewere chatting about what she was thinking about this year, Kate remarked thatshe thought it was a bit of a ridiculous tradition because every year she setsthese goals. By February, she’s pretty much abandoned them, yet there’s stillsomething hopeful in the act of making a resolution for the new year.

Resolutions andNational Quitters Day

This is a familiar story for sure.  Look at the membership surge at most gyms onJanuary 1st then track total visits in January compared to February.  By March, the total number of visits per daywill be the same as it was in the final months of the year prior.  The social networking app for athletes,Strava, has actually coined “National Quitters Day” as the day when mostexercise-related New Year’s resolutions are abandoned.  After analyzing more than 31.5 million onlineglobal activities last January, Strava was able to pinpoint the date when mostpeople report failing their resolution and predicts that in 2020, NationalQuitters Day will be January 19th! Granted their research was based on exercise-related resolutions but myguess is that the statistics are likely the same, and possibly even sooner, forwhat my friend Kate referred to as less tangible resolutions.   Seriously - 19 days into the new year orpossibly sooner, most people give up on the one life-altering goal they set forthemselves for the new year?  I knew mostpeople don’t stick to their resolutions but didn’t realize how quickly they wereabandoned which begs the question is there a better way? 

Four Keys ToIdentifying a Transformative Resolution You Can Keep

Choose Wisely: Peopleoften look to the ‘low hanging fruit’ when choosing which, of the many thingsin their life that could use their attention, are they going to focus onchanging this year. 

This year approach your choicedifferently.  Knowing that small changesapplied over a long time (365 days) lead to big results,instead, think aboutone thing you could do each day that would make you feel better.  One thing that would make you a tiny bithappier on a daily basis or that would make your days just a little bit moreenjoyable.  Then, before resolving,really consider the choice - “How would my life be different if I followedthrough on my new year’s resolutions?  How would I feel different?  What would look different?  How would my relationships bedifferent?”  In each of these cases, thenext question would be, on the most fundamental level, would making thesechanges make your life, and/or the lives of those you are closest to,better?  Imagining yourself and your lifeonce you have successfully followed through on your resolution is one of thekeys to not only choosing the ‘right’ resolution but also sticking to it onceyou have resolved to do so.

Plan toAct:  We are allfamiliar with the saying ‘Failing to plan is planning to fail,’ yet when itcomes to shifting a habit in the new year, over and over, we fail to plan.  Let’s look back at Kate’s last three years ofresolutions.  They sound more likeproclamations than plans, right?  There’sno real action or responsibility tied to them, which is likely why she felt thefirst two she mentioned were less ‘tangible’, or quantifiable if you will, butI’m not sure that even the last ‘get in shape’ resolution had teeth to it.  All of her resolutions were very wellintended, albeit fairly lofty and non-specific. Defining what it would mean to be successful enables us to work backwardto determine the small steps that we are able to act on consistently.  Let’s take the first ‘be more present’resolution - not sure how Kate would have defined success, but for me, thedefinition would be ‘more joyful interactions’ - truly making time to enjoy mydaily interactions.  What habit would Ineed to change in order to derive more enjoyment from my interactions?  Oh, right, I would enjoy them more if I wasnot so distracted by my phone or worrying about something that happened at workearlier in the day!   And now, we areonto something - less distraction… I resolve to put my phone on ‘do notdisturb’ mode for 2 hours per day when I am with my family; I resolve to sit inmy car for 5 minutes before transitioning into my home life to ‘unpack’ my dayso I don’t carry it with me into the house; I resolve to start and end my daywith an expression of gratitude . . . These are just a few examples of the typeof small steps in a larger plan that, if done consistently, will lead to thedesired goal of being more present.  Andthe beauty of it - making even one of those shifts in behavior consistentlywill make this year different than the last which is the goal of resolving inthe first place.

CelebrateSuccess: I mentioned the negativity bias earlier.  This bias definitely hampers our feelings ofpride and our ability to celebrate small success.  Let’s say something I deemed importantprevented me from a full 2 hours of ‘do not disturb’ time with my family.  Most of us, myself included, would beatourselves up over this - ‘Ugh, it’s only the second week in January and Ialready failed,’ rather than, ‘Bummer I couldn’t put my phone away for 2 hourstoday but given what was going on, I’m pretty proud that I put it down atall!’  One thought pattern is likely tomotivate me to continue trying to carve out that time while the other one ismore likely to lead to giving up - can you guess which is which?  Be gentle with yourself.  Change, no matter what the change, ishard.  Celebrate all the steps, big orsmall, taken in a positive direction in place of beating yourself up about themissteps or harshly judging the size of the step as not enough. Half-steps inthe right direction are still progress, and giving yourself the grace toacknowledge tomorrow presents a fresh opportunity to maintain that resolve.

Reflect on Change:  Learning is the opposite of stagnation.  Every change we effort to make is anopportunity to learn something, whether that is about ourselves or about themove itself.  If we look at resolutionslike an experiment or an opportunity to learn something about ourselves, we cantap into our inner curiosities - ‘Is it true what they say?  Does regular exercise really make you moreenergetic?’; ‘Does daily gratitude really lead to feeling more fulfilled?’...Making a single resolution isn’t going to teach you anything, but carving outa few minutes a week to reflect and consider what is happening as a result ofthe small changes you are making daily will pay dividends in maintaining yourmotivation.

I have a love-hate relationship with resolutions because Ido sincerely love the optimism and hopefulness that is attached to them. StillI struggle with the sense of failure that so quickly accompanies mostresolutions.  If this optimism/failurecycle was confined solely to the start of the year, maybe I could live with it,but we see some version of this cycle arise with most change on which clientsand friends embark.  We talk about theprocess of shifting behavior in terms of: observe (current habits); experiment(with change); analyze (what’s working and what’s not); adjust (build on yoursuccesses).  Applying these four steps toselecting and maintaining resolutions as well as any other change you hope tomake throughout the year can help ensure that you keep moving forward, learningand making this moment, day, week, or year better than the last.