As our well-meaning resolutions may now be causing a sense of defeat, is it time to revitalise them?

It’s well known that New Years Resolutions tend to be short lived or fail. The ‘New Year – New Me’ mantra is doomed to failure for a number of reasons as are most other resolutions. It’s about his time in January when our motivations begin to dwindle.
The most common reasons we don’t stick to them are –

• They’re too broad meaning we find it hard to define what we need to do to achieve them.
• They’re not realistic meaning we set ourselves up to fail.
• They may rely on motivation alone where we may need reward and signs of positive change to keep us going.
• We revert back to what we know very easily. We like what’s familiar and if we’re making a big change or many changes, we do not feel secure with this new life and revert back to our old ways.
• We forget to track progress.
• We forget about them – they fade from our conscious attention meaning we stop making the effort.

So, now is the time to be re-aligning our efforts and actively seeking to set ourselves up to fulfil our goals. How can we do this?
It can be helpful to use a framework and get things written down such as using SMART goals. SMART stands for –

• Specific – The goal has to be specified. If it’s too broad or undefined, we’ll have difficulty.
• Measurable – We have to be able to see and chart progress.
• Achievable – It has to be within our capability and capacity otherwise we’re setting ourselves up to fail.
• Realistic – If the goal is unrealistic, we will lose motivation very quickly.
• Time orientated – Having a timescale ensures we can stay focused.

So, if your resolution was to eat more healthily and lose weight, you can look to define this more effectively. Split this into the 2 and focus on Eating More healthily –
To be Specific means that you would identify what this means to you. For example, this may mean cutting down on unhealthy snacks, increasing healthy meals that you cook or reducing processed foods.

For this to be measurable, you may want to keep a food diary that you review weekly.

For it to be Achievable you may want to reinforce what you’re doing and how you will do this. For example, I will batch cook at weekends and will eat a healthy meal that I’ve cooked on 5 days of the week. You could decide to limit the amount of unhealthy snacks in your home.

To write how this is Realistic is where you detail how you will do this. For example, this is realistic because I will plan my meals and I can find time (at these specific times) to cook. I will create a list of meals that I can cook, that are healthy and that I like.

Time-orientated – I will trial this for 4 weeks and review this every week.

Resolutions come from a positive desire to be living well and making changes to enhance our lives. Often, as we do not stick to our resolutions, we feel an undercurrent of failure which serves to exacerbate our ability to self-soothe with unhealthy habits. Using the SMART framework is a tried and tested means of helping us achieve our desires.

As always, feel free to leave any comments.

Best wishes, Duncan