How to actually achieve your New Year's Resolutions

2020 is around the corner, and many of us are going to set ourselves goals we want to accomplish in the new year - New Year, New Me! What’s your plan? Start saving money? Start working out? Or eat clean? January is also the time where Gym memberships spike, because everyone has similar goals… But come March, weight benches are empty, and treadmills start collecting dust.

You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your system!

So clearly, it’s not enough to just set goals, otherwise we’d all be ripped and rich! Here is why: You don’t rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your system! I believe that there is no one major change that makes you successful. Just like one workout is not gonna give you a six-pack. It’s the continuous improvements the habits you develop over time, that will make an impact!

"Atomic Habits"

Aren’t you tired of setting goals you never achieve? Let’s take a deeper look on a system to actually follow through. For this, let’s break down the science behind creating habits. Most of the concepts here are from the book “Atomic Habits”, by James Clear, which I highly recommend you read! - Check out his Website for more on that topic

My big goal for 2020 is to get more consistent with my Spanish classes. After two years in Spain, my Spanish is still not good enough, and it drives me crazy. This is the year this is going to change. So let’s take this example as we break down how to achieve it!

Every human behavior relies on a constant feedback loop. Cue, Craving, Response and Reward. Repeated often enough, it creates a behavior. 

You can see this a lot in smokers. “I only smoke when I drink”, or “the hardest when quitting is not having a cigarette with my coffee.

Cue: Having a coffee

Craving: Uhh, I want a smoke

Response: you light a cigarette

Reward: Dopamine in your brain is released, and you further strengthen your habit to smoke when you have a coffee.

4 Laws To Rule Them All

Now how can we use this knowledge of how habits are formed to our advantage? How can you start working out, and I finally learn Espa?ol? 

According to Atomic Habits, 4 laws help you with that, making each step of the feedback loop easier to address.

Cue: Law #1 - Make it obvious.

We want to create a cue that gets us to think about the new habit we want to form. So the cue needs to be as obvious as possible. One thing the author suggests is habit stacking, basically attaching your new habit onto something you already do. So in my case, I will do the following:

Every morning after breakfast, I will sit do 20min of Spanish exercises in my living room. Here it is important to be specific, as ambiguity can kill the habit before it has time to stick.

When wanting to be more active, you could do something like: when I get home, after I take off my shoes, I immediately change into my workout gear. Or even further, take your backpack with clothes to the office, and before you leave, you change already.

Craving: Law #2 - Make it attractive

Here, it is recommended to kick off your craving with something you already enjoy doing a lot! That way, you will be more enticed to follow through, In my case, right before my 20min of Spanish, I am having breakfast. I love food, and that way, I can connect my cue with something I already love.

PRO Tip: Join a community where your desired behavior is already considered normal.

If you want to get healthy, you can join TechFit where we already work out a few times a week, and love the healthy life at work and beyond!

Response: Law #3: Make it easy

The action threshold should be extremely low. So what I will do, is to have my iPad for my App Babbel, or my workbook already on the living room table where I can see it!

Another way could be to put your workout clothes right next to your shoes, or lay them out on the bed! 

Reward: Law #4 - Make it satisfying

This is obvious when you think about dog training: Once the dog performs the trick, he gets a treat! Now, I don’t want to give myself some chocolate every time I finish my Spanish homework. That would just create a new bad habit of eating way too much chocolate, and then I need to work out more… A lot of apps use trackers to make your work satisfying through gamification. 10 day streaks, rewards for certain milestones etc. In addition, I am buying a calendar to cross off every day I studied. There’s something about making a big X with a sharpie :) I encourage you to try it!

Last word of advice

Never miss a habit twice. Things can come up, and missing a habit once can happen to the best of us. But anything beyond that is unacceptable, and will break your habits before they ever caught on!

Now taken these 4 stages into consideration, you can create your own feedback loop, and actually follow through with your New Year’s Resolutions! If you goal is to get fit, join us for our TechFit NETWORKOUT events in January, and we build our habits together! 

Join us here

Happy New Year, and Stay Fit Málaga! ??