Resolutions abound at this time of year. I’ve made some of my own (more on them later), but some of us are wondering if we’ll actually keep them.
It’s a valid concern: we’ve all made resolutions that fall apart soon after the new year starts, or we put them off until our goals become impossible to complete in the few months that we have left.
As bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as we are at the beginning of any new year, with passing time, our resolutions often end up causing more stress than motivation.
I believe the key to real, positive change lies in creating and keeping healthy resolutions: how you frame your goals, and how you measure your achievements, will determine whether your resolutions will build up and maintain your mental health throughout the year, or chip away at your self-confidence.
1. Assess your goals. Why do you want to do what you’re going to do? Does the way you’ve framed your resolution reflect the why?
Many of us would like to be healthier. Resolutions relating to physical health are among the most popular every year, and manifest themselves in many ways, e.g. go to the gym each week, take up running, lose weight.
Goals like ‘Lose 10 lbs’ can be particularly worrisome if you don’t say how you’re going to get there. By focusing on weight loss, rather than general health, you open yourself up to potentially problematic methods to achieve what you want, such as fad dieting, skipping meals, or taking exercise to extremes.
An easy solution is to rewrite your resolutions to reflect your main goal: to eat fewer junk food and more nutritious, balanced meals, or to exercise more regularly. Weight loss can be a measurement of greater health (particularly if your doctor told you to do it), but what’s more important is how you get there.
2. Have several levels of qualitative and quantitative achievements.
We’ve been taught to quantify our goals, but not to qualify them. Instead of resolving to run 5 km by the end of the year (especially if you’re currently a couch potato), and ‘failing’ if you only manage to run 3 km, try thinking:
- I will be satisfied if I can jog for 10 minutes without stopping.
- I will be more satisfied if I can jog for 20 minutes without stopping.
- I will be pleased if I can run 1 km without stopping.
- I will be very pleased if I can run 3 km without stopping.
- I will be extremely proud if I can run 5 km without stopping.
Imagine how you’ll feel after the completion of each goal, and write it in. The idea is to have several goals that will increase your self-satisfaction upon completion that will be in line with your general goal of taking up running, and to work your way up.
Instead of feeling bad if you fail the one large goal, this breaks your resolution up into more achievable baby steps — and gives you permission to feel good each time you complete one, which in turn motivates you to achieve the next level.
Best of all, even if you don’t do all of them — or if you decide you don’t want to, for whatever reason — you’ll now be able to say to yourself at the end of the year, ‘I’m very pleased that I can run 3 km without stopping!’
Hurray for positive mental health!
