Every new year, many of us plan to start fresh. Besides, the new year is always a timely occasion to change for the better. That is why a New Year’s Resolution is always part of our new year checklist.
Losing weight, saving more money, being more patient, being more organized, being more industrious, these are just some of the common new year’s resolution that many of us plan to work on.
But here’s the problem: Many fail to sustain their new year’s resolution.
Here’s a story that can practically illustrate a common trend every new year. So here come’s Johnny wanting to enroll in the gym on January 2 but only to find out that most gyms are already fully booked. Nonetheless, a gym manager advised Johnny to return on January 15. Johnny asked, “Why January 15?” The manager replied, “It’s because almost 75% of our enrollees usually quit 2 weeks after the new year.”
Why is a new year’s resolution designed to fail?
Here’s the answer: many are doing it wrong?
Sadly, many people think that changing something for the better happens right then and there. Consequently, when they realize that their efforts do not pay-off immediately, they tend to be discouraged and eventually they quit.
A significant change in our life does not always come immediately. It is a process. It takes days, weeks, or even months to see real results. So if you think that you can achieve your new year’s resolution as soon as possible and if you cannot handle your frustrations, you will surely fail.
So let me present to you some helpful tips that can help you achieve your new year’s resolution. If you do it right, you will surely succeed.
- Be realistically specific with your goals
How do you consume a whole elephant? You don’t eat the whole elephant in one sitting, rather you chop it, and eat it for days until it is fully consumed. But I hope eating a whole elephant is not part of your new year’s resolution. This is just an illustration that to achieve something big, we need to divide that large goal into smaller steps for it to become achievable.
So the first thing that you need to do is to be clear with your goal. Do you want to lose weight? If yes, how many kilograms to be exact? Is that specific amount of weight ideal for your gender, age, and even health? Will you enroll in a gym or just do it at home? Can you afford a gym with your present budget? If not, can you discipline yourself to do it at home? And many more other considerations to clarify your goal.
Then you need to set specific milestones. So if losing 10kg is your goal, and you realized that healthily reaching 10kg should take you 4 months, you may create a milestone every month, that is 2 ½ kg of weight loss each month to achieve your 10kg goal for 4 months. In this case, you will have easier targets that can take you step-by-step towards your goal.
Another thing to put in mind is to become realistic with your goals and milestones. Losing 10kg in one month might not be possible or if possible may lead to negative health consequences. This goes without saying that planning your goal also requires research and advice from experts.
It pays to be specific with your goals because this is the only way for them to become doable. You cannot go to the upper floors with one big step, you need to take the stairs step-by-step.
Working step-by-step to reach a goal is a very valuable skill that you can apply to any goal. It works even if you are working on very long-term goals such as buying a house or getting a higher amount of income.
2. Anchor your goals with the right motivation
According to Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2017). , there are two kinds of motivation when we are trying to achieve our goals: selfish motivation and selfless motivation. Selfish motivation is when we want to achieve our goals for the sake of money, fame, and attractiveness. Selfless motivation is when we want to achieve our goals for the sake of personal development, creating harmonious relationships, or adding value to the lives of others.
Specifically, selfish motivation may mean exercising just to look attractive or studying more to get high grades and then be praised. Selfless motivation, on the other hand, may mean exercising to be healthy or studying more to learn and be able to help one’s family someday.
Accordingly, science confirms that when our motivation is selfish, we might gain momentum in the early stages of our effort to achieve our goals but when time passes, the momentum begins to fade until we become demotivated. Moreover, we are also generally unhappy along the way even if we have successfully achieved our desired goal.
Ironically, when we try to achieve our goal using selfless motivation, we tend to become more motivated and happier. As such, we become more inspired to work on our goals each day knowing that we are doing something meaningful and purposeful.
So, when you work on your new year’s resolution this year, make sure to always anchor your efforts to selfless motivation. When you catch yourself being motivated selfishly, just pause for a while and reflect. Think of how your present effort can be used to add value not just to you but also to others or a greater cause.
3. Be detached towards the result
This is shocking but believe me, this works. If you want to achieve something, make sure that you don’t care so much whether you achieve your goal or not. Let me explain.
The Buddhists believe that there is only one source of suffering in our life, and that is attachment. We tend to get lonely when we lose something, why, because we have been attached to that particular thing. We tend to get angry at a particular situation, why because we are attached to a frustrated expectation. In other words, negative emotions are the result of being attached to things and situations. This is even true with our goals.
The thing about new year’s resolution is since everybody is so desperate, many want to achieve the results so badly. With their desperation, they become attached to the idea of reaching the goal right then and there.
When this happens, attachment to the results is most likely to the point that it becomes an obsession to some. For example, you can notice people inducing themselves to a very strict diet or very strenuous exercise in the first part of January to immediately gain results. As a result, they tend to find the idea very difficult to sustain so they get discouraged. Eventually, they quit.
The attachment also causes frustrations. Since you are so focused on the result, you tend not to enjoy the process. Later on, you will realize that you have been working so hard only to find out that your progress is just very little. With your frustration, you become discouraged. Eventually, you quit.
So, the remedy to this is detachment. This is how it works, aim that you will achieve the result but at least in yourself, you are also ready to accept the situation if ever you will not reach your desired results in your desired time. Detachment will save you from frustrations and discouragement. You will begin saying to yourself, for example, “Oh I am short of my objectives, instead of losing 2 ½ kg for this month, I only lost 2kg. It’s okay, I’ll just work better the next month and probably postpone my target date to 5 months instead of 4 months.”
But wait? Is this not a sign of procrastination? Or maybe too much leniency to the point that you will not work anymore with the goal because you are too relaxed? It may look that way but it does not feel that way. You will be needing an extra amount of inspiration when you work with your goal. The more difficult the goal is the larger amount of inspiration you need. Inspiration comes from positive emotions. Positive emotions come more often when we are detached from the result and instead focus ourselves on the process.
Maybe the simpler explanation is, “it’s not about the destination, it is about the journey.” You don’t’ worry too much about what is ahead if you are enjoying where you are in the present.
4. Consistency is the key
All things that are worth the shot requires commitment. Commitment requires consistency. Consistency is when you continue to work despite the odds. Consistency is when you continue even if you don’t see any progress, you continue even if no one is supporting you, you continue even if you get discouraged, and you continue even if there are more reasons to quit than to go on.
Consistency is a very important factor that can ensure success. It overtakes talent, connections, and resources. If you are consistent, you are like water that can break a stone. It seems impossible at first, but when you continue to try, later on, you will realize that it is possible.
When working with your new year’s resolution, it takes a consistent amount of action to make it happen. Here’s the thing: whatever change you want to happen in your life becomes automatic and requires almost no effort when you have worked consistently at some point. In short, consistency builds habit. Consistency installs a particular behavior to your system, which eventually makes that behavior an essential part of your personality.
For example, if you are never fond of exercise and have rarely done it in your life how can you make exercise part of your lifestyle to the point that it will not be hard to convince yourself to do exercise regularly? The answer is consistency.
Let me explain. A study conducted in University College London in 2009 suggested that for you to make a habit or to install a particular behavior to your lifestyle, you need to consistently do that behavior in 66 days. Why 66 days?
They explained that it takes an average of 66 days for our brain to establish the necessary brain cell connections that will support our new habit. Yes, you heard me right, as we exert effort personally, our brain is also one with us in building the biological structure that will make our continued behavior automatic. This explains why practice makes perfect. Or why a particular skill may be hard at first but becomes gradually easier as we keep on repeating that skill like playing the guitar.
But here’s the catch. It is not easy to be consistent with 66 days, not even to start with the first day. Since the brain lacks the necessary brain connections yet, it is up to us to keep the momentum on the first part of the 66 days. We need to painfully force ourselves to work on our desired habits at the start.
Think of yourself as a space-rocket. A space-rocket uses most of its fuel to launch into outer space. When it reaches space, the remaining few amounts of gasoline is already enough to last its entire trip to space. So why is this the case? The rocket needed a large amount of fuel to counter the force of gravity and air resistance. In short, it needs the most effort at the start to gain momentum and when it reaches the point of zero-gravity, the amount of effort needed is already less because its momentum is already maintained by the earth’s orbit. It has become almost automatic. Building a habit and reaching your new year’s resolution requires you to be like the space-rocket.
5. Find a mentor
The bottom-line, if you want to make things easier and faster for yourself, find a mentor. A mentor is someone who has been there. He/she is a person worth being with since he/she knows a lot more than you do when it comes to that goal that you want to reach.
If your new year’s resolution is about losing weight, look for a health coach. If your goal is to be wiser with money then look for a financial coach. If your goal is about deepening your spirituality then look for a spiritual counselor. If your goal is to be more mentally healthy or have better personal development, look for a psychologist. If you want to manage your emotion and stress more effectively, look for a life coach.
But before you go on with a specific mentor, make sure that your chosen mentor has already achieved what you want to achieve. Chances are, if the mentor has not achieved it yet, he/she may just be based on theories without real-life experiences.
For example, I was a kid with very low mental health. Because of my horrible childhood experiences, I became depressed and anxious. I even had a few attempts to kill myself. I had serious psychological problems. But what helped me along the way are mentors and advisers who have also been in my situation, who understood well what I have gone through. They easily empathized with me and their advice made so much sense that it was practically easy for me to apply them in my life. Now, because of my mentors, I am experiencing a life of happiness and success, characterized by strong mental health.
Having a mentor is like having a constant reminder to work on our goals. And to be able to reach the top, we need to be reminded now and then.
Conclusion:
A new year’s resolution does not need to be just a passé. Our goals for this year can be successfully achieved when we employ the right steps. There is no easy way to have it but if we set specific milestones, have the right motivation, detach ourselves from the results, exert effort consistently, and find a mentor, we will surely achieve our new year’s resolution.
All the best, and happy new year.
Coach Matt Doming, RPsy is a registered psychologist who specializes in corporate psychotherapy, psychological testing, and mental health training. His mission is to help companies boost their employees’ productivities through effective workplace mental health programs. #yourmentalhealthpartner