Sticking to your New Year’s resolution
Those of us who may have vowed to change ourselves for the better this new year may be finding that it is easier said than done. Here are some tips to stick to your resolution.
HAVE you vowed that this will be the year you will lose weight, eat healthier, make better financial decisions, quit smoking or simply delve into self-improvements?
And if you made such a New Year’s resolution, have you stuck to it now that we’re at the beginning of February?
According to the Statistics Brain Research Institute, about 58% of people make these resolutions, with only 9.2% of people saying they were successful in achieving their resolution at the end of the year.
Many of us fall off the bandwagon within the first week.
Why do we fail to maintain our resolutions throughout the year?
The answer is quite simple. Immediate results are paramount to us, and their value is far more important than future fulfilments.
Studies have constantly connected the art of self-control to success in weight loss, managing personal finances and overall self-improvement.
We are well aware that inducing constraint when faced with temptation and suppressing our urgency for immediate results will lead to exertion of our willpower and ultimately reaching our resolutions.
Yet we still submit to our impulses of binge eating or shopping.
Why? Because we are nearsighted in our vision of self-control.
We need to bear witness that self-control is not a barrier to obtaining momentary pleasures, but rather a way for us to create gains and increased worth for our future.
We imagine self-control to be like a resistance band, holding us back from that doughnut, holding us back from purchasing that expensive car and finally holding us back from happiness.
We see it as a burden, inevitably making us miserable. Although we may be able to first resist the urge, our willpower slowly fades, and before we know it, our resolution is long forgotten.
To add to this, we constantly face emotional situations leading to stress. We feel stressed at work and use smoking as an outlet.
We lose a family member and decide to get away and splurge on
a vacation.
We give up on self-control and willpower since it makes us miserable, and death is eventually inevitable, right?
Stress seems to be a major player in affecting willpower and decision making.
Researchers from the University of Zurich did a study where they separated people into two groups. One group would select foods while stressed, and the other
group, stress-free. The results were that people under stress chose the unhealthy items, while those with no stress picked the healthier items.
Part of this experiment involved observing brain activity of the participants. Scientists noted alternating spikes in connectivity in various areas of the brain and also noticed that the stress hormone – cortisol – was partially responsible for the
reduction in this connectivity.
With reduction in brain communication also came reduced willpower.
In the most recent survey carried out in the US, 57% of respondents reported losing weight as a goal for the new year, and 50% opted to eat a healthier diet.
The survey further showed that less than one in five adults reported being successful at making health-related improvements.
There is a continuous battle with people struggling to have enough willpower.
The American Psychological Association (APA) defines willpower as “the ability to delay gratification, resisting short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals”.
Achieving your resolutions through healthy behaviours and resisting temptations can be stressful. However, strengthening your willpower can help to achieve your goals.
The APA advises these techniques to help you strengthen your willpower:
● Focus on a single, clearly defined goal instead of a list of goals. Succeeding at the first goal will strengthen your willpower and improve your ability to succeed in the next.
● Monitor your behaviour towards your goal by keeping consistent track of your progress and developing a feasible action plan.
● Build positive relationships and surround yourself with people you trust and who will be supportive of your goals.
As 2018 begins, take the time to reflect on your emotional wellbeing before delving into your new goals.
Be grateful and reflect on what you have now instead of what you want.
Be patient with yourself, and be proud of all your achievements no matter how tiny they are.
Achieving your goals is not a race or competition, it is a step towards the best you that you can be. Make 2018 a celebration of you. — Tribune News Service