By: Alex Dewoskin, LCSW
Every year most of us in Chicago and around the globe make New Year’s resolutions and often they are the same resolutions we quit the year before. Americans often approach their New Year’s resolutions as lofty ideals. The problem with lofty ideals is that they’re not very effective behavior modifiers.
Behavior modification is what will help you reach your desired destination in life. Maybe we resolved to eat healthier and exercise regularly, invest more in relationships, create more work/life balance, or learn a new skill. But, according to U.S. News & World Report, 80 percent of New Year’s resolutions fail by February.
But, why do people abandon their resolutions? Self-care, self-advancement, and doing things to improve our overall health and well-being are great. But vowing to completely change one’s behaviors on the first day of a new year, as if some magic motivation switch flips on January 1st, sets up unrealistic expectations because these drastic changes are often way too high to attain. In addition, charging into these changes with an “all-or-nothing” approach tends to discourage people when they don’t get their desired results instantly.
If you want to stick to your New Year’s resolutions in 2019, don’t dream big, dream reasonable. It’s better to approach New Year’s resolutions as attainable. It’s completely acceptable to resolve to be a better person, but that resolution without accompanying goals is unlikely to move you into action. If you set reasonable and strongly worded goals, however, you’re far more likely to modify the behaviors that will help you fulfill your vision for the future.
So rather than setting up a list of New Year’s Resolutions, set New Year’s Goals or Dreams. While they sound similar, the mindset and approach to achieving them can be very different. By definition, Resolutions are a firm decision to do or not to do something. And Goals are the object of a person’s ambition or effort.
They are a desired result that a person wishes to achieve, a target that a person wants to reach. They are an end-point where a person sees them self after a certain period of time. Goals can be short term or long term. Certainly, goals sound more optimistic, growth oriented, and appealing.
The new year doesn’t have to bring about new goals. You can also build on what you’ve already started and achieved and then refine it. Goals should not be rigid and they should provide a direction to follow to achieve a desired outcome. Since Goals involve intention, planning, preparing, and taking realistic action, they provide a built-in structure for success.
It’s important to pick the right Resolution/Goal/Dream for you. If the resolution or goal is created based on what someone else (or society) is telling you to change; is too vague; or you don’t have a realistic plan for achieving your resolution, you are setting yourself up for failure.
You’ll give yourself your best shot at success if you set a goal that’s doable and meaningful to you. When you are thinking about your goals, remember to always follow your heart and your dreams. No matter what life throws at you, anything is possible when you believe in yourself. Keep your list short, maybe 3 things to get you going. If you attain them, great! Then you can set additional goals for the rest of the year. Take it one step at a time, baby action steps, little things that can be done each day to get you closer to your desired goal.
Reflecting on the following questions can help you create a purposeful thus successful path for your new intentions:
- Why is goal-setting important to you?
- What areas of growth are important for you?
- How far have you already come in your growth path?
- Can you acknowledge that progress for future encouragement?
- When you achieve the growth you wish for; how will life be different for you; can you visualize yourself as you wish to be and how you will feel?
- What abilities and strengths do you have that will help you to achieve your goals?
- What obstacles do you anticipate will be on your path…obstacles are normal?
- What supports do you have to assist you on your self-growth journey?
- How will you keep yourself accountable on your personal growth path?
- How will you celebrate your successes?
After you have taken this inventory, it’s time to choose your goals. Studies have identified some effective ways to goal set and overcome common obstacles to realizing your plans. New Year’s resolutions are more likely to be attained if they are “SMART”:
- Your resolution should be absolutely clear and concrete rather than vague. A good goal is a specific goal. It indicates the who, what, when, where, and why of your lofty vision for the future. It tells you not only what you eventually hope to accomplish, but also the steps you must take to get there. Keep your goal visible, meditate on it, write it in a journal or on a post-it note hung on your mirror, create a “vision board”, or share them on Facebook. Whatever method you use, it should be in a place that you can see so it keeps you accountable to yourself. Also, letting someone else know what you’re planning, can provide a support system of people who care about you and who can also help to keep you accountable to your goals,
- Effective goals also specify what success looks like, and they do so by including measurement. This specificity is much more effective than the hope for a vaguely worded outcome. Logging progress into a journal or making notes on your phone or in an app designed to help you track behaviors can reinforce the progress, no matter what your resolution may be.
- Keep them simple and practical. Most people fail before they even start because they start with huge overarching plans to extremely makeover their lives. it’s great to have big dreams but your New Year Resolutions are not the place for that. Motivation can quickly give way to frustration if you don’t break goals down into smaller achievable steps towards reaching that goal. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have big stretch goals. But trying to take too big a step too big and too fast can leave you frustrated, or affect other areas of your life to the point that your resolution takes over your life. You can set ambitious goals, but make sure that you break down the goals into attainable steps. Giving yourself the ability to meet your lofty goals in a piecemeal manner helps you avoid discouragement.
- Realistic/Relevant.Is this a goal that really matters to you and are you making it for the right reasons? If the goal is created out of the sense of self-hate or remorse or a strong passion in that moment, it doesn’t usually last long. But if you build up a process where you’re thinking strongly about what’s good for you, you’re changing the structure of your life, you’re bringing people into your life who will reinforce that resolution, then your chances for success increase exponentially. Realistic goals aren’t just those goals that you’re able to attain; rather, they’re the goals that you’re willing to attain.
- Time-bound.A good goal is one that is time-limited. You’ll find that giving yourself a time frame will boost your motivation. Just don’t make the time frame too short, because you want to give yourself time to complete the goal while also making the behaviors into a habit. Don’t set a rigid timeline for accomplishing what you want to accomplish. Trust that as long as you keep going with an open and honest mindset, you are making progress in the right direction. The timeline toward reaching your goal should be realistic as well. That means giving yourself enough time to do it with lots of smaller intermediate milestone goals set up along the way. These give you something to celebrate along your journey and provides the perfect way to boost esteem and motivation to continue on. Resolutions are supposed to long-term and are supposed to be something you keep instead of completing.
Keep Believing in Yourself. Don’t beat yourself up for failures or setbacks along the way. Setbacks are a normal part of growth. We are all human, we are not perfect, and that is ok. If you do experience a setback, evaluate what happened. Pick yourself up and reassess your goals. For example, if you are thinking of hypnosis to stop smoking, think about everything you’ll need to do to quit. Maybe it was overreaching and you need to trim your goal down to something you can manage better. Know that the journey is not linear but a series of learning growth experiences.
Finally, if you haven’t attached a strong set of emotions of how you will feel when you achieve the goal, it is really difficult to meet the goal. It is going to be hard anyway, and nearly impossible without being able to visualize those feelings.
It’s easy to become an idealist when the New Year rolls around, but it’s important to remember that New Year’s resolutions are ultimately a tool to help you grow into the person you want to be. Making a resolution to live your life with purpose and passion is a beautiful and exciting occasion, and should not be dreaded.
