RESOLUTIONS - Help or hindrance?

Resolutions are statements of intention, a promise to yourself to get something done. They’re about resolving to do something better, and usually come off the back of things you meant to, but didn’t do the year before. By this very nature they tend to start out from a place of negativity and failure. When you set New Year resolutions you’re vowing to do them pretty much overnight, the start time being 12.01am 1st January. Can you really engage your motivation as simply as flipping a switch??

This is where the problem with resolutions begins.?

Often people aim for extreme changes and many resolutions are based on putting restrictions in place. They are generally unrealistic and have high unachievable outcomes from the off. When you come from a place of restriction, this can have the exact opposite effect - it leads to you wanting it more, thinking about it constantly, resulting in you probably doing it even more than you did before you set the resolution!

Think about the times you’ve set a New Year resolution, say, for example, to stop eating chocolate. You expect like magic to be able to resist and make it happen the very next day. But instead you crave the chocolate, think about the taste of it, justify to yourself it would be ok to have only a little bit. Then you convince yourself you’ll finish off the Christmas chocolates first, and put the resolution firmly in place on January 10th - yes, I’m talking from experience here!

Telling yourself you are or are not going to do something isn’t backed up with the motivation, plan or steps to make it happen. You tend to go with an all or nothing approach. You say what the resolution is, but there’s nothing backing it up to ensure you can achieve it. The expectation that you’ve set it so it will happen like a sprinkle of Disney magic is not, unfortunately, the way it actually plays out in real life.

Another challenge can be that you forget about having made them. You start out well the first few days because it’s sitting in the front of your conscious mind. But then normal life takes over, and the resolution dissolves as your subconscious mind kicks into full swing. Then you suddenly realise you’ve had three days of drinking your milky coffee each morning when you’d told yourself you were kicking that little habit - oops!

The success rates for achieving your resolutions are pretty grim. It’s estimated that only 8% of people actually stick to their resolutions and accomplish them, with only 25% of people actually staying committed to their resolutions after 30 days.?

So what should you do when we hit this turning point in our traditional calendar that we associate with new beginnings and fresh starts??

I think goals are the way forward. Goals are statements of commitment and usually much more positive, they’re about something you want to achieve rather than something you want to stop, which are what most people set with resolutions. They aren’t rigid, but more specific and actionable which results in them being way more effective.?

They give you something to achieve and work backwards from, setting the right plan with small steps to take you to your desired outcome. They provide a direction to follow and ways to monitor your progress, adjusting and revising the plan as needed along the way.?

Goals involve intention setting, planning, preparing, and taking realistic action. The more specific you get when breaking down your goals, the more likely it is that you’ll accomplish them. You want to make working on your goals a habit and something that becomes a natural part of your daily routine. Likewise, build in habits to regularly track and acknowledge your progress. Celebrating your wins and success on the journey is as important if not more so than celebrating when you achieve the final result. This helps to keep you motivated and aligned to what you want to achieve, preventing the early slip off we see when you make a resolution.

Whether your goals are personal or professional, when you’re making plans or setting weekly to-do lists, always ask yourself if what you’re putting on there is contributing towards your goal. If it isn’t, ask yourself if it really should be something you’re spending your time and energy on. If it’s not, delete it and forget about it. Try to make as much of what you do about progressing towards your desired outcome.

This is often why resolutions never stick. You set them and expect to be able to do it and more often than not, resolutions made at the start of a New Year are about stopping or removing things from your life. They aren’t followed up with clarifying why you want to do this and what it means to your life. You don’t create a plan to get you there, tracking what’s happening on the way. You simply expect it to happen because you’ve said you want it too.

By making a slight twist from setting a New Year’s resolution to setting a goal, you make it relevant, stronger and much more likely to be achieved.

If you're interested in finding out more about the services provided for individuals or teams to get clear about why your health matters and create goals that will transform your life, reach out and let's have a chat. The more awareness we share on what being healthy really means, the more people will be living a life they value and thrive in.

Nicola Mercer is a Transformational Health Coach supporting female entrepreneurs and those working in corporate to transform their health into wealth using her core framework of mindset, movement, nutrition, sleep and stress.

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