So have you made your New Year Resolution yet?
Fireworks” by noppasinw (FreeDigitalPhotos)
No? Why not? Have you heard that about 30% of those resolutions don’t last more than 2 weeks? And only 19% last longer than 2 years? Hardly a lifelong change… That’s right. But, on the other hand, people who make decision to change some unwanted behaviour at this point in time are twice as likely to succeed at it than people who do it at some other point in the year (link)
Why is so hard to stick to what we decided to change around this time of year? Most of our New Year Resolutions are to do with some sort of habit change: lose weight, exercise more, and quit smoking. And changing behaviour is hard. Many people fail.
But no one wants to fail. The reason why we make those resolutions is to achieve the goal- to make the change happen. But if you have tried to change your behaviour before, maybe made one of those New Year Resolutions before and it did not last too long, you may be secretly wandering if you will succeed this time.
There is no way to know for sure, until you’re actually well underway and happy with your new behaviour, until it has become automatic, until your New Year Resolution becomes a HABIT. But there are ways to know if you are likely to fail at achieving the goals you have set yourself at New Year, and from quite early in the process. I’ve looked at some scientific evidence and listed those warning signs below.
Take a look and see if your New Year Resolution has any of these characteristics.
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Your New Year Resolution is not specific enough
All those ‘lose weight’; ‘get fit’ or ‘have better work/life balance’ sound good, but are not specific enough. Being business people we all know about creating SMART goals: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. While not all of those characteristics apply to successful behaviour change, being specific about the behaviour you want to change and clear about how you are going to measure your progress definitely do.
If your New Year Resolution is vague, re-phrase it to be more SPECIFIC, e.g. lose 10kg before summer, or be able to run a 5k run this year.
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Your New Year Resolution is too aspirational – too big, or too broad
Want to run a marathon in 6 months time? Unless you are already able to run at least 10k, this is pretty unrealistic. The same comes for large weight loss. But the worst resolutions are those that encompass more than one behavioural change – want to lose weigh, quit smoking AND have a better work-life balance? Sorry, mate, forget it – or pick one and forget about the other two.
Science shows that trying to change more than one behaviour at the time puts just too much pressure on our willpower, creates too much stress and we just fail.
So if your New Year Resolution is too big or too broad – make it SMALL. Make it as small as you can; so small you can’t fail (and this guy will tell you how to do it).
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Your New Year Resolution relies on motivation/getting motivated
Of course you need to be motivated to change. The better the motivation, the easier the challenge. But motivation has its downsides, too: it depends on you feeling motivated, so by definition is changeable – it comes and it goes, depends on too many factors, and in result is too unreliable. It’s great to feel motivated to do your daily share of exercise, but you can’t relay on motivation to show up at the gym or to put your running shoes on every day. What you need is a system that will push you to get there every day. You need to set a schedule for habit development.
So forget about ‘getting motivated, make your behaviour change plan MOTIVATION-INDEPENDENT.
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Your New Year Resolution goes against your grain
Have you made a resolution about improving your work/life balance and you like or need to work long hours and weekends? Or maybe you decided to go on a diet and you travel a lot and cannot quote prepare your own food? Or maybe you want to go out to the pub with your team every Friday, but actually you are an introvert and all you crave after work is the peace and quiet of your own home?
If your New Year Resolution goes against your grain – your values, who you are, what you have believed in for most of your life – it’s another warning sign it is likely to fail.
Make sure your goal is ALIGNED WITH YOUR VALUES, with your personality. And if you truly want to work on extending your comfort zone, then make sure you are really motivated to make that change and go really small (e.g. you may need to network for job or promotion opportunities, so if you are an introvert, just take a more gentle, more introvert-friendly approach to it).
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Have you got a written plan on what and how you want to implement? Have you prepared your environment for the change?
Not having a written plan is a bad sign. People, who plan and write it all down, are 70% more likely to achieve their goals.
Assume you will get off track and plan for getting back on track ASAP.
Also, it makes it much easier, if your environment is redesigned to support you in ‘showing up every day’. If you want to stop snacking on sweets, don’t buy any and have a bowl of fruit and veggie pieces to nibble on. If you plan to go for a walk during your lunch break, then take your walking gear to work and keep it there, handy. If you need to do anything that is not ordinary in your schedule, like get changed, or prepare food, make sure it’s easy to do it.
Make sure your plan and your environment are READY TO USE and use them to your advantage.
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Your New Year Resolution is focused on outcome and tied to a deadline
This is a point where some of the aspects of SMART goals don’t apply. Because behavioural change is a process, focusing on a deadline and outcome makes is more difficult to implement. It takes anything between 18 days to nearly a year to change behaviour, and some people and some habits may take longer than others. It’s hard to predict, so be there for the journey, not for the outcome. The point of behaviour change is the change in behaviour itself, so that the behaviour becomes automatic. It will take as much time as it needs to, so make your New Year Resolution TRANSFORMATIONAL and enjoy the ride.
Good luck!
