Secrets to a Successful New Year’s Resolution

 Yup, it’s that time of the year.  The end and the beginning all within a very short space of time. A time for reflection on the greatest hits and misses learnings and an opportunity to make plans for the year ahead.  I have to admit I really like the Christmas / new year’s in betweeny bit when the air has gone out of the festive whoopie cushion and we can hopefully relax and take it easy. While I rarely make big plans for New Year’s Eve I do look forward to the new year and a new page. 

 I had been a staunch resolutionist for years, in fact I found my 15 year old self’s diary a while back complete with start-of-the-year resolutions which included – drink more water, don’t pick spots, stop thinking about whatshisname. Did I ever stick to them? Rarely, and that’s why in more recent years I’ve taken the foot of the resolution pedal. I have however been doing a bit of research and to start with I’m thinking of these resolutions more in terms of habits – creating good ones, eliminating bad ones and in a bid to give these habits direction, creating goals.  

Getting Started
Resolution – a firm decision to do or not to do something.

Habit - a settled or regular tendency or practice.
Depending on who you ask it takes 21, 66 or 250 days to make or break a habit, but really it depends on the individual.

Goal - the object of a person's ambition or effort; an aim or desired result.

We start with our resolution, my advice here is, to choose just one that you can really commit to, rather than having a long list.

An example of one of the most popular resolutions is ‘I want to get fit’. 

There are many ways to ‘get fit’, we need to decide what works best and is appropriate for us, let’s say our resolutionist decides on getting fit by running.  
Specific goals can help by giving us a focus e.g. I want to get fit and my goal is to run the Dublin half marathon in September.  Creating a running habit is what’s going to get us to our goal. More about goals a little later.

What’s your ‘why’?
This is important.  What’s your intrinsic motivation? Ask yourself why you want to achieve this resolution / create this new habit or break the old one.  Each time you answer, ask yourself why again.  Five times in fact.  Drill down to the core of why you want to do this. 

I was chatting to a friend today who says she wants to lose weight – I asked her why.  ‘Because I want to look better’.  But after the fifth ‘why?’ she said her life of late has been spent running around after her children, she wants to take back some time for herself, take more care of her health and have more energy and restore some of the confidence she feels she’s lost.  

Find something that relates to this intrinsic motivation – in my friend’s case it’s a photo of her when she felt great – place in a prominent place as a reminder of what you’re trying to achieve.

Make a plan
‘There are dreamers and there are planners.
The planners make their dreams come true.’
Edwin Louis Cole.

How are you going to do this? Do you have a specific goal in mind? Is there a timeline?

Let’s go back to our earlier example, ‘I am going to run the Dublin half marathon in September’.  This is your super goal.  But September is a long way away, we need to break that super goal into sub-goals e.g. I’m going to join a couch to 5k group, mid-March I’m going to do a Park run, I’m going to do the mini marathon in June etc.  

You create a plan to take you to your super goal and you are hitting milestones and achieving as you nail your sub-goals along the way.  Using the SMART tool can be a great way to create that plan and achieve your goal.

SPECIFIC – What is your specific goal?
MEASURABLE – How can you measure your progress? (With sub-goals!) Nothing is as motivating as progress!
ACHIEVABLE – You might need to do your research here or consult with an expert. Given the time available and/or the commitment you’re willing to make is your goal achievable? If it is fitness related, and you are starting completely afresh, a medical check-up is recommended. Is the goal reasonable enough to be accomplished?
RELEVANT – Is your goal worthwhile and will it meet your needs?
TIMELY – Giving yourself a timeline will help maintain your focus and accountability. `

Support and accountability
If you are trying to create a new habit it’s going to be a challenge.  Consider how you can support this yourself and how others can support you.  Supporting yourself can mean managing your stress levels – we all know how when we get too busy and therefore stressed all our good intentions can go out the window.  Also getting adequate sleep.  Lack of sleep can weaken our resolve regardless of what our resolution is.

Also consider asking for support.  Letting friends, family know what you’re trying to achieve, not just for support but for accountability.  Different examples of this can be asking your family to get on board if you’re trying to clean up your diet, so they’ll understand when they notice all the biscuits and sweets have been removed from the home.  Buddying up with a friend or joining a group is another way of finding support, accountability and ultimately helping you reach your goal.

Breaking bad habits  
Going cold turkey on a bad habit is very challenging.  Rather than just leaving yourself hanging, try replacing the old bad habit with a good one.  E.g. if you are trying to kick the daily 5pm glass of wine, replace it with a glass of sparkling water or a herbal tea or maybe go for a 15-minute walk – yes I can feel the eye rolls.  Do you like something sweet with your 11am cuppa? Replace it with sliced apple and nut butter, or whatever healthy snack tickles your fancy. 

Be aware of things that cue your bad habit e.g. a coffee has to be accompanied by a biscuit, a glass of wine by a cigarette, be mindful and be prepared.

Falling off the wagon
It happens to all of us, don’t waste time beating yourself up, just get back on.

And lastly – this doesn’t have to happen on January 1st. It can start whenever your plan is in place and you feel ready and committed to making a change.

Good luck and Happy New Year!

SMART Resolutions

The hills are alive, with the sound of New Years Resolutions.

resolution
/rɛzəˈluːʃ(ə)n/
noun

a firm decision to do or not to do something.

Since my teenage years I’ve been an ardent list maker culminating at the end of each year in a long list of resolutions.  A few months ago I found a diary I had kept as a fourteen year old and within that amongst the many toe curlingly cringey entries was a new years resolution list.  The first three items on the long list were 1) stop picking spots 2) drink more water 3) never think about ***** (teenage crush who shall remain nameless) again.  I’m pretty sure all of those resolves fell by the wayside within a week, or however long it took for the next spot to appear…in which case probably less than a week.  I can confirm ‘drink more water’ remains a challenge to this day and something I resolve to do at least three times a year every year.  Thankfully I don’t have as many spots to contend with as I did when I was fourteen. Occasionally that teenage crush will pop into my mind.  

In the last few years I haven’t really bothered with any new years resolutions and dare I say it, I have kind of missed them. I’m a total bore when it comes to New Years Eve and prefer to get to bed early and avoid all the fuss and having to hug and kiss strangers at midnight (any other other day of the year it’s not an issue because you don’t have to wish them well).  I do however really like New Year’s Day and getting up early and out for a hike to start the new year on a positive note. And it is a positive time, the chaos of Christmas is behind us, within a few weeks we’ll notice the days getting longer and then it’s just all downhill towards the summer months…well kind of…what better time to set a positive intention? This year realizing that when it comes to resolutions, less is more and I’ve made just one resolution.

Research shows that only one in ten of us will continue with our new years resolutions until the end of the year and that it takes sixty six days for something to become a habit.  That may sound disheartening but according to the experts the way to achieve our resolutions is to make them specific e.g. rather than just pronouncing what you’re going to do e.g. ‘I’m going to get fit’, which let’s face it, is a bit vague, figure out ‘the why’ – your motivation, and then ‘the how’ – make a plan.  

Have a serious think about your motivation. Why do you need or want to do this?  How will you benefit from it? Now let’s stop calling it a resolution and call it ‘a goal’ instead. This is where the ‘SMART’ tool comes in to help us achieve this goal.

Specific – If your resolution is ‘to get fit’, be specific e.g. to run a 5k park run or a 10k.  At this point it would be good to figure out your ‘how’?  Joining a group / club who have specific training sessions or buddying up with someone is a great place to start.  If you’re training with a group / club they will help you work towards your goal using the next four principles.  If you’re buddying up and your friend has experience in the area – great, otherwise do your research.  Again the researchers tell us that working with a friend or group is a great motivator and gives us accountability.

Measurable – setting intermittent / smaller goals means you can see your progress and remain motivated.

Achievable – Your goal should be achievable e.g. if you’re a complete newbie to running / exercise and starting in January an ironman triathlon in June might not be a great idea, whereas the mini marathon would be an achievable goal.

Realistic – be realistic about the amount of time and effort you will need to put in to achieve your goal and also the fact that it might take a bit of time before you see results.  You may fall off the wagon and that’s ok, just dust yourself off and get back on.    

Timely – There’s nothing like a deadline to focus the mind and efforts.

Whatever your goal is it can be useful to apply these rules and if the whole New Years resolution thing makes you want to smash a Christmas tree bauble off the wall, while I’m not suggesting procrastination (I do enough of that for all of us), remember resolutions are not just for new years, they can be made at anytime.

What’s my resolution? It involves writing. I won’t bore you with the specifics but suffice it to say I thought I’d start with a blog.

Happy New Year Everyone.