How to keep New Year’s resolutions
Don’t set yourself ambitious targets that are likely to fail, says Abi Jackson
WHETHER you’re calling them New Year resolutions, or simply thinking about things you’d like to achieve this year, January is often a time of setting goals.
But it can also be a time of beating ourselves up – when those ambitious targets fall by the wayside and we’ve “failed” by the time February arrives.
Is it possible to make new goals actually stick? Or is there another way of approaching it, so we don’t end up feeling worse than before we started?
WHY DO YOU WANT THIS?
“The thing about setting goals is that it’s about improving your life, not creating another stick to beat yourself with – and it all starts with compassion,” said coach and podcaster Meg Kissack, founder of The Rebel Rousers (therebelrousers. com).
“When setting goals, I recommend asking yourself three things,” noted Kissack. “Is this something you actually want, or is it something you feel like you ‘should’ want? How can you do it in the most compassionate way possible? How can you make it sustainable?”
DITCH THE WAGON
A big reason new year goals fail is because we let ourselves believe it’s all or nothing. Either we’re on the wagon, or we’ve fallen off. But life happens. Humans get tired. Someone throws a birthday party and you need a lie-in.
“Remember, you’re not aiming for massive perfect leaps. You’re aiming for tiny imperfect actions,” said Kissack. “There needs to be some acceptance that there will be times you fall off the wagon and that’s OK.”
EMBRACE IMMEDIATE GAINS
Dr Ian Taylor, Loughborough University’s senior lecturer in psychology, said: “If your benefits are in the future, then there’ll be little motivation to do the behaviour. But if the benefit is immediate, then its motivational power will be associated with the behaviour.”
If your goal is to reach a particular physical change that feels way off in the future, your chances of sticking with that regime are a lot lower than if your focus is simply to enjoy doing the exercise each week.
CELEBRATE YOURSELF
Build on this further by celebrating your wins along the way rather than fixating on some daunting, far-off target – even if that’s just doing a week without scrolling Instagram in bed, or running a kilometre without stopping.
“Every time you give yourself credit, the pride you feel releases a small hit of dopamine, which makes us feel good,” said mind and body coach Kim Raine (kimrainecoaching.com).
‘BE’ YOUR GOALS
“Our identity is one of the best motivations that exist, because we all find expressing our identity very easy,” said Dr Taylor. He suggests focusing on “being” our goals, rather than goals as something we “do”. So if your goal is to write a novel, think of yourself as “being” a writer. “Think about who you want to ‘be’ and work out how to do that. After a while, these types of goals become much easier to sustain.”