How to keep your resolutions

When I was a child in the 1980s, New Year's Day didn't symbolise the beginning of a new year. Instead, New Year began with the arrival of new stationery throughout January: clean notebooks, hard-edged textbooks, a quiver of grey led pencils, coloured textas, smudge-less rubber and scuff-free black Clark shoes, for a month anyway. The stationary symbolised a clean slate – notebooks waiting to be filled, the promise of a fresh start.?I loved that feeling.?

Now it is much easier to be cynical about New Year's Resolutions. New diets and gym routines often don't last beyond January, so why bother? Change is hard. Why wait til the new year? Maybe every week should involve new resolutions. But I’m not sure that is the point.?Our culture uses the New Year as an opportunity to reflect and renew in a way that is better for us. As Prochaska (2019) demonstrates, failing at change or a new year's resolution is not really a threat to change but an important part of the change process. Failure is an invitation to have another crack, accept what is happening, revisit your reasons for changing something. Start again.?

When I reflect on the reason for not keeping to New Year's Resolutions, it is usually because my goals were too big, there were too many to handle, and some were not personally relevant. I would love to look like Adonis, but what is more meaningful to me is being healthy and connected to my community. Ultimately, my resolutions could focus on developing habits to improve my nutrition, fitness and the quality of my relationships.?

Oscarsson (2020) conducted a study of New Year's Resolutions involving?1066 people. Participants were asked to make resolutions about the usual things such as health, fitness and nutrition. The study found that participants with approach-oriented goals were significantly more successful in achieving their resolutions than those with avoidance-oriented goals. An approach-oriented goal focuses on achieving a gain. It could be that I want to lose 5 kgs so I can run around the lake with my young son, who loves athletics. The goal focuses on achieving something better and is associated with positive emotions. Participants less successful in achieving their goals were more likely to construct avoidance-oriented goals. Avoidance-oriented goals are about preventing negative experiences and emotions. An avoidance-oriented goal would be something like: I want to be skinnier so I am not embarrassed at the beach. Oscarson's study also found that the group receiving some support was more successful than the group receiving little active support or extended support.?

I have written elsewhere about people who are good at maintaining change. They tend to exhibit most of the following characteristics:?

1. A clear and urgent reason to change/improve

2. A clear vision of the future state

3. Awareness of problematic behaviours in their current state

4. A clear outline and plan for implementing the new and improved behaviours

5. The ability to perform the new behaviours

6. Consistent determination to take small steps towards the future state

7. Sustained commitment to future behaviours

8. Capacity to accept/ask for support to take the new steps

9. Reward for making progress towards the desired new state

10. The Ability to return to preferred behaviour after failure

11. Celebration and enjoyment of the new state?

In my work with school leaders, I have noticed that many leaders stumble on characteristics 4 and 5 -?creating a plan to address a current challenge. For example, many school leaders wish to improve their personal fitness and health but feel constrained by the busyness of the school day and its never-ending complexity. The challenge won't disappear, so, some of the solutions involve school leaders becoming more intentional about what time they wake up, morning fitness routines, and when they leave the workplace. If “energy” rather than “time” is the currency of high performance (Loehr & Schwartz, 2006), now is a great time to consider a resolution that targets the development of a healthy routine that will enable you to lead with heart and energy throughout 2024.

#leadership #education #schoolleadership #highperformance #coaching

Helen Aguiar GAICD Gunesh Rajan Professor Gary Martin FAIM Frances Cusworth Brendyn Appleby Dr Ray Boyd Bobby Chopra Damian Ramos Albert Borrello Vince Bellini Rachael Lehr Dr Mathilda Joubert Gary Racey Australian Council for Educational Leaders WA Branch Benny Owen

References?

Oscarsson M, Carlbring P, Andersson G, Rozental A (2020) A large-scale experiment on New Year’s resolutions: Approach-oriented goals are more successful than avoidance-oriented goals. PLoS ONE 15(12): e0234097.?https://doi. org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234097

Loehr, J., & Schwartz, T. (2006). The power of full engagement. Managing energy, not time, is the key to high performance and personal renewal (pp. 199-216). Gabler.

Prochaska, J. O., & Prochaska, J. M. (2019). Transtheoretical model. In?Lifestyle Medicine?(pp. 219-228). CRC Press.