Goals You Keep Versus Doomed New Year’s Resolutions

Goals you can keep, versus doomed New Year’s Resolutions.
Beat the 8% failure rate; discover the baby steps that guarantee successful change.

Everyone’s talking about it and dishing out the solutions to failed resolutions.

“We’re thinking too big.” “We’re not considering the why.” “We’re not really ready for change.”

It’s like the world expects you to make New Year’s Resolutions, but then expects you to bail by April.

How do you pick goals you can keep?

Pretty dismal prospect?  You probably discovered as a ten-year-old that your resolution to be kinder to your brother blasted out the window ten minutes after breakfast on New Year’s Day.  No matter how hard you bit your tongue, who could expect you to put up with his totally annoying noises?

So it goes with most resolutions.

I’m going to lose 5 pounds a month.  Three days back on the job, and you feel righteous eating that soft, gooey donut (or four) after being bitten, chewed and spit out at the job.  For something that wasn’t your fault.

I’ll walk 3 miles every day.  Doomed from the minute the words hit your day planner.  Life happens.  A parent is admitted to the hospital.  The littlest little gets a fever and you can’t leave her side.  Your first grader coughed all night, and although she could sleep between bouts of medicine and steaming and rubbing with healing oils, you didn’t. Walk? I don’t think so. Tomorrow will be a better day.

I’ll do one good deed for someone every day.  And by good deed, you mean something really impressive.  Something like baking cookies for the kids teachers.  Taking a casserole to the mom with a newborn.  Mailing a cheer package to Grandma in the nursing home.  Oops.  I can’t think of anymore.  Three days, three good deeds, then a week, and maybe one more.

And so it goes.

The Answer to success with goals is Baby Steps

About that goal of losing 5 pounds a month…

Scientists used to think that having one major resolution was more effective than a couple of smaller, interrelated goals. But recent studies by Dr. John Norcross at the University of Pennsylvania at Scranton show that having two goals – naturally linked to one another and more specific – may lead to better success. If you want to lose weight, for example, resolve that you will cut sugar and carb consumption, and that you will keep a journal listing everything you eat and drink. That will statistically increase your chances of following through with both actions and shedding a few pounds.

foxnews.com

So the goal of walking 3 miles a day and losing 5 pounds could be related goals.  However, being so specific with the numbers is too much pressure.  Keeping the journal about what you eat and drink and how far you walk each day, with no set limits, will make any achievement a cause for celebration.  Whereas, if you set a number, and fail to meet it, well… you give it all up.  Set one small goal, then when you meet it, plan the next slightly bigger goal.  Take the goals one baby step at a time.

Another reason for a goals journal is that you can spend 5 minutes listing, and forget about it the rest of the day. Relax.  Don’t be on yourself every single OCD minute about, “oh, I can’t eat this” or, “I’ve got to get out and walk!” Do it, list it, and forget it.  But if you don’t do it, list it anyway and resolve to try again tomorrow.

Praise yourself in spite of temporary set backs.

When you do miss a day, or a week, or even a month, do not scold yourself.  Use positive post-its on your fridge, computer, bathroom mirror.  Just little happy thoughts floating in and out of your vision all day long.  Do whatever it takes to conquer those miserable monsters that creep into your brain and berate your attempts to better yourself.  No.  Don’t go there.

Then celebrate every achievement.

Plan ahead and then reward yourself for goals met.  About 30 years ago I needed to lose some weight (I actually thought that! If that person knew what my today person knows, I would have been elated to be the size I was then.)  Then I rewarded myself by making a huge, two tiered glass hanging macrame table.  (Now you know what era this was.  Please don’t try to figure out my age…)

I reached my goal, and made the macrame marvel.  It hung proudly in my bedroom for years.

(Then I finally, reluctantly, got rid of the ancient thing, only to find out that ten years later, macrame is coming back into style.)

This little history lesson shows that goals met and rewarded can result in lasting character benefits.  The “feel good” because you conquered an objective gives confidence to try the next one.

Train your brain muscles slowly.

It takes willpower to follow through on a change in your lifestyle, something your brain isn’t pre-programmed to accomplish.  This study was conducted by Professor Baba Shiv of Stanford:

A group of undergraduate students were divided into 2 groups. One group was given a two-digit number to remember. The other was given a seven-digit number to remember. Then, after a short walk through the hall, they were offered the choice between two snacks: a slice of chocolate cake or a bowl of fruit. What’s most surprising: The students with 7-digit numbers to remember were twice as likely to pick the slice of chocolate compared to the students with the 2-digits.

The why of this? According to Prof. Shiv, it’s very obvious: “Those extra numbers took up valuable space in the brain—they were a “cognitive load”—making it that much harder to resist a decadent dessert.”

So the pre-frontal cortex, which handles willpower, is a muscle that needs to be trained over time. If you suddenly begin a grand exercise routine on January 1, you’re like a wimp trying to lift a 300 pound bar without any training. Who even does that?

Make it easier for yourself by planning ahead. Don’t suddenly overload a couch-potato brain muscle with a massive target. Like a bad habit, it takes 80 days to prep your cortex for the new plan.

And then, when the day arrives that you can say, “Wow, I’ve been walking every day for 6 weeks,” it will be a habit. And you won’t want to break it. You’ll feel weird missing that part of your day. I’ve been there. However, I’ve also lost it. And it’s super difficult to start up again.

No More Doomed Resolutions

Welcome to a New Year, and a new you.

This is the year you make the resolution to love yourself into health, no matter what. One step at a time.