By Kristina Pernar
Making a New Year’s resolution started as a religious tradition dating back to the late 1800s. Many people would make promises to their God(s) about things they would do in the New Year. Today, these usually take the shape of freeing ourselves of bad habits or implementing positive change into our personal or professional lives. In the past few years alone, there has been a lot of research conducted on who succeeds with their goals, but unfortunately, even more studies on who fails and why. People often cite their failure as due to setting unrealistic goals, not tracking their goals, or just flat our forgetting their goals.
We aren’t programmed to change overnight, but something that may inspire you, is that studies have shown that 46% of people who start their goals at the new year are ten times more likely to be successful than those who make resolutions mid-year (Norcross, JC, Mrykalo, MS, Blagys, MD, J. Clin. Psych 58: 397-405. 2009).
Why is it then that by February 1, most of our resolutions have been discarded as our regular routine picks up again? More importantly, how can we set ourselves up for success right from January 1? The simple answer would be to take tiny steps, after all, the future happens one day at a time.
Most people are aware of the SMART formula for goal setting, making our goals Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time -based. How can we add simple goals to our life that are also habitual and not intimidating? Countless studies have been done on what motivates people and keeps them encouraged to be successful in completing their goals. Here are Five strategies to help you fulfill your New Year’s resolution this year.
1. Set your own goals that are specific and realistic to your current 24 hour life
Take incremental steps by implementing one new habit at a time, that way, you have the ability to slowly encourage the success of it sticking. Then, move on to the next small goal. If your goal is to eat healthier this year, set up monthly SMART goals on one change you will implement per month. For example, in February I will eat 5-10 servings of fruits and vegetables per day. In April, I will make a fast food budget, ensuring that I don’t eat fast food more than once a week. After completing one incremental change, you will be amazed at how excited and encouraged you will be to move onto each month’s goal. By this time next year, you’ll have made 12 healthier choices every day, week, month, etc. Goals you can stick with long term as well.
2. Mastering your goals takes time, be realistic
Be considerate of the specific improvements you made each day. Maybe today you only procrastinated for twenty minutes instead of an hour. Maybe tomorrow you’ll only procrastinate for fifteen minutes. Be understanding of yourself, even if you slip up. Yesterday, I had a serving of fruits or vegetables at every meal, today I rushed around and was relieved to find carrots in the soup at dinner. Does that mean I should give up and eat a box of chocolates tomorrow? It means that I paid attention to my disappointment of not having fruits or vegetables at every meal and feel motivated to ensure I do that tomorrow. There is not always a linear path to successfully implementing our goals, accept that there will be ups, downs, and sometimes circles on the way.
“You don’t need to be a master by day three! Simply ask yourself at the end of each day if you got a little bit better today. Did you do more? Did you do it well? Or be very specific with your goals, did you learn five vocabulary words, make your eight sales calls, eat your five servings of fruits and vegetables, write your four pages? Ask yourself, was I a little bit better today than yesterday?” (Pink, Daniel H., “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us)
3. Be Accountable, to yourself or others – Using rewards
If you are looking for some extra accountability, check out Stikk , a website where you can commit to your goals by giving money to a friend or charity if you are not successful. This motivates us to be accountable rather than rewards focused, where you would otherwise be spending that money to reward ourselves in an “if-then” bargain. We all love rewards and there is evidence that we can use rewards to motivate ourselves, however when doing so we need to ensure we are paying attention to the intrinsic rewards we feel working towards our goals by not overpowering them with external rewards.
4. Mix it up to stay motivated
One way to stay encouraged is by making a yearly checklist of things you want to do, rather just than focusing on things about yourself you want to change. Create a short list with a variety of challenging goals and very reachable goals such as, “Watch all the James Bond movies” mixed with more difficult goals like, “Run a half marathon”. When you’re busy reaching your perceivably easy goals, it encourages you to pursue your larger and more grandiose checklist items because even by checking off the minutest goal people often feel intrinsically satisfied which in turn motivates them to do more. This is similar to making a checklist and including tasks that are very fast and simple. Once you are able to check a few tasks off we feel motivated by the dwindling list.
5. When beginning a new project, don’t seek perfection
Remember that we live in a world filled with endless information, there is always more research, knowledge, editing, etc. that we can put into our work. At some point, we need to find a clear end to our preparation and just do whatever it is we are setting out to do. We must learn to accept that what we are doing will never be perfect, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be anything less than great.