Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail

According to research on the topic, about 60% of us admit that we make New Year’s resolutions, but only about 8% are successful in achieving them. Regardless of the outcome a year ago, the majority of us go right ahead and make a new set of resolutions–hoping for the best (www.inc.com)
The big focus for most seems to be:

• Eating better
• Exercising more
• Losing weigh
• Saving money
• Learning something new

Giving up smoking or drinking less are also probably big ones, but these start with a much smaller group of potential quitters and therefore do not get the same New Year’s Resolution air time as the ones mentioned above.

Most researchers agree only about 8 to 9% of the resolutions made ever stick. So if we are to believe these numbers, let’s take 100 punters, 40 do not make resolutions, 60 dive in. Out of our 60 hopefuls, 30 do not make it out of January with their resolutions intact.  The 30 left, head into February, probably starving, injured, dying for a spending spree or thinking about selling their new guitar. From these poor little buggers, 5 will be able to stay the distance.

So 100 start and 5 get a result, based on those odds the smartest people are the 40 that did not bother with this silly business.

Let’s break down what New Year’s resolutionists have done:

• Identified a negative habit or a need for some advancement.
• Let’s assume they want to change of their own volition.
• They have set a future date when to take action on the issue.
• They have probably told key friends and family about their intention.
• They are not alone as lots are involved in resolution setting.
• They follow through with action on the designated date.

The above are all very sound practice when it comes to making a change, in fact, these are all key components that usually go into seeing through a positive change.

Yet the statistics show these things do not work,  why is that, they should right?

Let’s look at some key reasons these changes do not stick.

 

1. Too many resolutions

This is a beginner’s error. Resolving to give up smoking, eat healthy, exercise more and save money all starting the 1st of January sounds amazing. But let’s keep it real, the only way you are going to keep all those resolutions is if you travel to a parallel dimension in which you are a different version of yourself.

A better approach would be to tackle the resolution you need the most and that is it. Just one. Should be easy given you were about to go after 5 big ones before I mentioned that was not such a good idea.

 

2. Resolving to change the beliefs and values that cause the actions

Exercising more might be the resolution, but the same person will tell you they hate exercise. Healthy eating might be the plan, but that same person will tell you they love junk food.

You have to get to the core values and beliefs that underlie the negative behavior. Unless these are identified and addressed the resolution will always be hard to maintain.

People who eat healthy enjoy how healthy eating makes them feel, they enjoy the sense of giving to themselves through eating nourishing and energising foods.

They believe that eating healthy is literally making them a healthier, happier and more effective person that will likely live longer as a result of this action.

You see if that is how a person thinks, well the action is a lot easier then if a person says ‘I love junk food’. So resolve to learn more about healthy eating, resolve to learn about vegetarian cooking, resolve to learn about organic food. Make these resolutions to go with your ‘healthy eating’ resolution and I am confident you will have better results this year.

 

3. Take things up rather than give things up

This is a big one for me.

Giving things up feels hard like you are denying yourself something you enjoy. You are basically forcing yourself to not do some action- abstaining from smoking, drinking, eating sugary foods. It is not to say there has to be a little of this, at one point or another you have to say I am going to pass on that drink or biscuit. But before you try the cold turkey this new year’s, let’s warm up a nice cup of positive change.

Imaging a person that goes to the gym 3 nights a week, eats healthy salads every day, sleeps a regular 7 hours per night and walks their dog three mornings a week. Every Saturday is yoga and healthy breakfast with friends.

Really try and imagine this sort of lifestyle, then imaging this person also smokes 10 cigarettes per day.

See that last part just sounds silly right. Why would a person that does all those other positive things, do something like smoke. Stopping smoking must be incredibly hard, but it is a lot easier if you are living the lifestyle of the above example. You have made stopping such an obvious choice and you already act like a non-smoker so nothing else needs to change at the same time.

 

4. Focus on the action rather than the outcome

Losing weight is an outcome. The action here is increased cardio exercise or eating healthier meals. Try and keep it specific, measurable and achievable. Exercise 3 nights per week, 2 will be a run, 1 is a local basketball game.

In addition to this every day, eat a healthy breakfast which should reduce your sugar craving at morning tea.

Every day you hit the mark you are losing weight, tell yourself a good job.

If you must weigh yourself, sure do it, but do not let this be the total measure of your success. You are hitting the goal if you are exercising more and eating healthier.

 

5. Stop Negotiating with yourself

Often you hear about a woman that smokes but stops the moment she is informed that she is pregnant. Similarly, another scenario where a man just cannot find the time to exercise but is known to be a hard worker who is always on time and at work.

You see we have non-negotiables in our lives.

Standards that we have set and that are a must to be met. For some, this might be the health and wellbeing of our children or maybe we have a very high work ethic that does not allow us to take a day off work or maybe you would not dare leave the house without putting makeup on.

Whatever your non-negotiables are, be assured you probably have them. Things that are just the standard for you, things that you have just made a must, no question about it.

You see this is how you need to think about your New Year’s Resolution, it is the standard.

Exercising three mornings per week is the same as going to work, it is unthinkable to not go. When you are about to smoke the next cigarette, consider if you would let a child smoke that? So why the hell are you letting yourself do it?

There is no thought needed, no negotiation to be entered into. These are just the standards. Once you really get into this thinking, there is no effort needed to stick to resolutions. The idea of not sticking with the program becomes harder than staying with the resolution.

Good luck on your journey this year and may your new year’s resolutions bring you Better Life Living.