How to Write New Year’s Resolutions that Stick!

1. Use Science to Help You Keep Your Resolutions!

Visualization

It’s a good idea to start with envisioning your goals—do visualizations, make a vision board, or just dream about your goals with your partner or your friends. This isn’t science yet, as far as I know, but you can’t exactly reach a goal if you haven’t first figured out what it is! Visualizations and vision boards are great ways to help you turn your nebulous dreams into actionable items.

Plan

It’s always a good idea to have a plan for reaching your goal. You will be more successful if you focus on SMART goals— goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-focused. For more specifics on how to formulate smart goals, read here.

Tiny Steps

Another important aspect of planning is to create small steps. Big changes can be overwhelming, and many people get discouraged before they even get started if the intermediate steps are too large. BJ Fogg, a scientist at Stanford University, talks about the importance of tiny steps in forming life-long habits. The classic example is flossing, a habit that has recently gotten a lot of press. Start by flossing just one tooth, says Fogg. Sounds silly, but research shows it works!

Do you have a resolution to work out more in 2020? Just do 10 pushups first thing when you get out of bed. Have you resolved to eat healthier? Instead of changing your whole diet, just start by bringing a healthy snack to work to replace that morning bagel. Have you promised yourself to do yoga every day? Instead of buying a pricey plan at the yoga studio, sign up for a website like Gaia and do a 10-minute program every morning or evening.

However, just visualizing and planning for your goals is not enough!

Plan to get blocked!

Research shows that the people who are best at keeping their resolutions go one step farther than that. After envisioning and planning for success, they plan for obstacles.

Once you have your plan in mind, try to come up with all the things that might get in the way. Make a list of all the possible obstacles, and then brainstorm solutions.

Plan to get tripped up.

Then plan how to overcome the obstacles.

It’s as simple as that. For more detail on how to succeed at planning for obstacles, read about WOOP — Wish + Outcome + Obstacles + Plan ( there’s even a free app!)

2. Still Getting Tripped Up? Make Sure Your Resolutions Align with Your Values

Taking some time in the New Year to re-visit your values is always a good idea. Our values evolve over our lifetime, and you may not value the same things in 2020 that you valued in 2019.

Do you make the same resolutions over and over again? Maybe the reason you never follow through is because you actually value something else that gets in the way of achieving this goal. This sounds confusing, but it happens much more often than you would suspect. Let me explain with some examples:

In the last couple of years, a lot of folks have begun to value being involved in the political process. If this applies to you, you know that keeping abreast of politics these days takes a fair amount of time. Time that might have been used instead to learn that foreign language, or how to play the piano. If learning a language or playing the piano has been on your list of resolutions for years, maybe it isn’t something you actually value, you just think you should value it! Maybe you value learning about politics more. Now is a good time to adjust your list of resolutions to reflect your current interests and values. It is certainly possible that like many of us, you would love to be able to play the piano, or speak Italian, but you don’t value that skill enough to warrant the amount of time you would have to spend learning it.

Anything that’s been on your list of New Year’s Resolutions for years is worth examining with the values test. It can be a huge relief to take something off of your list that you really don’t want to spend the time and energy doing.

Have you had “lose (insert random number) pounds this year” on your resolution list for years? I sure did. In fact, statistics show that losing weight is the most popular New Year Resolution. Read here about how I re-evaluated this goal and now feel so much better about the whole thing. I never did lose the 10 lbs, but after literally 30 years of having it on my list (reeeeelly flat learning curve on that one!) I am much happier overall, and my resolutions reflect my values much better- now I focus on things like being strong and able to ride my bike for miles on the beach or dance all night long at a silent disco.

Read here for more information about how to align your goals with your values.

3. BE not DO

I don’t mean “be rich, famous, beautiful or thin”. I’m talking about being kind, grateful, humble, honest, calm, committed, reliable. What are the characteristics you’d like to express more often in your life? This is not about being someone you aren’t, it’s about practicing more of the behavior that makes you proud.

Pick 2 or 3 ways of being, and practice one each month. At the end of each day, reflect on the ways you practiced, and the times you missed opportunities to practice. Just this simple exercise will help you increase awareness, and lead to changes in the way you relate to others.

If you are willing, have an accountability buddy. Ideally someone who is also working on practicing something they value. You can catch each other doing well, and catch each other when you forget, too. Pick someone who is willing, supportive, and non-judgmental. You can also have an accountability buddy that you check in with at the end of each day (briefly!!) or week. This can be a great way to re-connect with someone you care about but have drifted away from. If you are doing this long-distance, you can simply make your end-of-the-day reflection on your progress into an email to your accountability buddy.

Conclusion

The new year is a perfect time to start something new and different, but new beginnings can happen almost any time. Dan Pink, the author of When, The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, says there are 86 days a year that are excellent for new beginnings. So if you aren’t quite ready to attack your resolutions on January 1, 2020, you only have to wait 5 more days for a Monday—another good time to start something new!

Could You Use Some Extra Help with Your New Year’s Resolutions?

By January 8, about 25% of our New Year Resolutions have already been abandoned. Therapy can help you understand why this happens to you. Therapy can help you get unstuck and move forward to create the life you want and deserve! Give me a call at 323-999-1537, or email me at amy@thrivetherapyla.com to set up your free in-office or phone consultation. We can chat about your specific situation and how I can help. I want 2020 to be your best year ever!!