Healthy New Year Resolutions

Make resolutions, fail, repeat!

Who doesn’t know this pattern? A reported 60% of us set New Year’s Resolutions, 55% of them being health related.

Recurring resolutions include:

• I’m going to cut junk food
• I’m going to exercise more
• I’m going to go to bed earlier
• I’m going to stop drinking (or maybe just drink less) 

The quote ‘If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got’ comes to mind here. As humans, we are rational beings (ok and emotional too!) and well equipped for adaptive learning. Why then do we continue this same doomed practice of setting resolutions that, for most, are destined to fail? More importantly how then can we make change? 

Making and sustaining change

The key to change is in our mind. Most would agree that our minds are a powerful force. Too powerful some feel, believing our minds often have a will of their own. An important realisation is that our mind is a part of us. We choose what our mind thinks. We choose what we feed our mind (both literally and metaphorically). We are the driving seat of our mind (assuming we take the controls). 

Another quote comes to mind (excuse the pun) here is ‘The more you build the want, the more you build the can’. If you really want something, you are likely to make a serious effort to achieve it. At the same time, if you don’t want to change something, no amount of resolving is going to get you there. I come across this a lot in my work. Very often I find that people ‘sit on the fence’ as I call it. They say they want to change and tell themselves and others that they want to change. However if they really think about it – by this I mean think about what the change involves and what it will mean to them – they may well find they don’t want to change after all. They end up in limbo between ‘I want it but I don’t want it’.

Reducing or stopping drinking

Let’s take the example of someone deciding they want to cut down on their drinking. They like the idea of this when they’re sober. They like the idea for their health. But do they like the idea of sticking to one glass or two at their annual charity dinner where everyone drinks? What about the karaoke night with old work friends? Or even those Thursday – Saturday evenings relaxing at home with a couple of glasses more than intended? Do they really want to cut down on these? Maybe they don’t really like the idea after all when they realise what it means.

So often we set out to address the consequence and not the root cause of our change. You can decide to cut the junk but if your job is making you miserable and you find yourself seeking refuge in the biscuit tin, you need to go deeper than just the food.

If we want to lose weight, we often do the same as what everyone else wanting to lose weight does which likely means following the latest trend. If we want to drink less, we’re likely to do the same as others what wanting to stop drinking do – for example Dry January. Would it not be better to look at what people who maintain a healthy weight do? Or to model those who drink moderately, little or not at all.

To leave you with one simple message: change begins with a thought. 

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If you (or someone you know) would like to make and keep any health related changes, email me here to fix a short telephone chat to see how I can help. 

Image courtesy of Suzy Hazelwood