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Overview
Many people make New Year’s resolutions, but few stick to them. In fact, most of us don’t even follow through on our promises to ourselves. However, there are certain strategies you can use that will help you keep your resolutions and achieve what you want in life. This article includes key points about resolution making that include why we have a hard time keeping our promises to ourselves and how we can change it by using the right strategies. You’ll learn how making a change is not as difficult as it seems if you set realistic goals for yourself and find ways to motivate yourself so that sticking with your new habits becomes easier over time.
Big Idea #1: It’s hard to stick to resolutions you’ve made, as often they are too broad or idealistic.
New Year’s Eve is the time to celebrate and make resolutions. You normally tell your friends what you’re going to change, such as losing weight or quitting smoking. But in reality, you won’t keep those promises because it was last year that you made them and this year is a new start.
However, you fail to keep your resolutions year after year. Most estimates say that people fail in keeping their resolutions 88% of the time. Why is this?
People fail to achieve their goals because they make too many resolutions. People tend to feel guilty about spending the holidays in a certain way, so they promise themselves that they will change everything the next day. However, these changes are usually too broad and therefore hard to follow through on. For example, if you decide that you want to go to the gym every day for two hours after work, then you’ll probably stop going soon after starting your new routine because it’s just not realistic.
Broad resolutions like these are unlikely to be effective, because they’re too vague: “I’ll skip the gym today and go tomorrow instead.”
Sometimes, resolutions fail because people want to change without knowing how to. These are wannabe resolutions and they’re more like commandments than actual changes.
For example, if you’ve ever said that you want to be more organized, then you’re just stating a wish. Sure, it’s good to have wishes and goals, but how do we actually accomplish them? There’s nothing in your wish or goal that offers any direction on where to start – and if we don’t know where to begin, then it’s unlikely that we’ll reach our goal.
Big Idea #2: When your brain goes on autopilot, you fall prey to bad habits.
It’s easy to blame yourself for not being able to keep a resolution, but that’s far too simplistic. The real reason you don’t is because your habits and routines control much of what you do.
Humans are creatures of habit. We do things on autopilot, like driving to work and stopping at red lights without thinking about why we’re doing it. This helps us save mental energy for more important tasks that require our undivided attention. However, habits can be bad as well as good; they can lead us to eat unhealthy foods while at work or buy snacks from the vending machine when we’re not hungry.
Our bad habits are difficult to break, because they’re so deep rooted and we’ve been doing them for a long time. In fact, the only way to change a bad habit is by being aware of your actions and cultivating mindfulness. However, it takes great mental energy to be mindful all the time. Therefore, when you try changing your old habits, you can easily exhaust yourself trying too hard and then fall back into the old routine again.
In most cases, you can’t change your behavior unless something drastic happens. For example, if you’re diagnosed with a serious illness or have a bad breakup, it may be possible for you to make big changes in your life. But other than those events that cause major shifts in your behavior, the only way for you to change is to use external tools such as apps and books.
