New Year's Resolutions

Many of us create New Year's Resolutions only to have them fail within the first couple of months. Today we talk about why our resolutions tend not to stick and what we can do to give ourselves a better chance of success.

Transcript

Welcome,

My name is Shawn White and I am a certified health coach specializing in lifestyle medicine.

And today I would like to talk to you about making New Year's resolutions.

We are at the start of a new year and so this is the time that many of us make promises to do something differently in the new year,

Aka a New Year's resolution.

So whether it be quitting smoking or quitting drinking,

Going to the gym,

Working out more,

Eating healthier,

Losing weight,

Changing our careers,

Learning new things,

Volunteering.

You know,

These are changes that we wanted to make in our lives or we've thought about and we're using this time,

New Year,

New Me.

So we're going to move forward and make these changes.

So what are the benefits of making New Year's resolutions?

The first one is there's a motivation that happens when we make them because usually we tend not to make New Year's resolutions in a vacuum,

Right?

We normally announce them to other people,

So you know,

Someone will ask,

You know,

Are you making a New Year's resolution?

You're like,

Yeah,

I'm going to do this.

And so,

And once we put it out there,

Well now we kind of have to follow through with it.

So there's a little bit of motivation because of the fact that we've,

You know,

Made a little bit of a,

I don't want to say spectacle,

But you know,

We've announced it to the world.

It for many of us,

It can also be a sense of taking control of our lives.

You know,

There might be something that we feel has gotten away from us,

Whether it be our weight or our careers or anything,

You know,

And so we can try to take back a little control in our lives by doing these changes in our lives.

And that's going to give us a sense of achievement.

You know,

If we follow through,

And let's be honest,

There's a lot of times,

You know,

We make New Year's resolutions and they fall by the wayside,

Usually within the first couple of months of the year.

And we're going to get into why that might happen.

But you know,

If we follow through with them,

Then yeah,

There is a sense of achievement and that builds our self-esteem and our confidence,

You know,

Because we set out to do something and we achieved it.

And that just also gives us like a good sense of optimism,

Right?

We can have hope for the future.

If we were able to do this,

We're going to be able to do other things that we put our mind to.

So that's all the reasons why we should be making resolutions or the reasons why it's not a bad idea to make New Year's resolutions.

Personally,

I always feel like if you want to make a change in your life,

You should just make the change and not wait for the beginning of a year or a month or a week.

But for a lot of people,

This is a great time to do this.

So why do New Year's resolutions fail?

Where do people go wrong with their New Year's resolutions?

Well,

The biggest one that I always feel like is it's because it's not something that they really want,

Right?

Like if sometimes we make New Year's resolutions or any sort of changes because we feel like it's something that we should be doing.

And that's not always the case.

I can take myself as an example.

I probably quit smoking six times before it stuck.

The first five times,

I really didn't want to.

So that just became the whole crux of it.

So if it's not something that you really,

Really want,

You're not going to follow through with it.

So you need to be cognizant of that,

Like going into it.

Sometimes they're just too ambitious.

You can try to make a resolution that's just way too lofty of a goal.

If you decide you're going to go to the gym and you're like,

I'm going to go to the gym seven days a week.

And it's like,

Well,

You used to go zero days and now you think you're going to go seven.

Maybe work into that.

It can be very big and overwhelming to do it that way.

And particularly if you don't have any accountability.

If it's just you that's doing it,

Then if you don't do it,

Then who's going to hold you to it?

Nobody's going to.

And your resolutions really also need to align with your values.

It's like the importance of it,

The worth of it,

The usefulness of it.

If you're deciding that you're going to do something,

I think I mentioned volunteering,

It's like,

But that's not really that big of a thing to you,

But you feel like you should be doing it.

Like any time you feel like you should be doing it,

It's not really aligning with your values.

And so therefore it's probably not something that you should take on.

And other times you just might have obstacles that get in the way of things.

I could sit there and say,

If you decided to take up jogging,

Well,

At the time of this recording,

The past week in the Northeast where I live,

There was like a week straight of,

I don't think the temperature ever got above freezing at all.

It's not the most ideal time to take on an outdoor activity.

So I think by and large,

We need to have a plan.

I think there's a lot of times that we go into these things without a plan and that's where things just go wrong.

If I say that I'm going to lose weight,

It's like,

Okay,

Well,

How much weight and how long is that going to take?

And how are we going to lose the weight?

Are we doing it through diet and exercise?

If we're doing it through diet,

Then what dietary changes are we making?

If we're doing exercise and what type of exercising are we doing?

What's your plan?

You need to have a plan going into these.

So that's what you need to look at in regards to being successful with creating your New Year's resolutions.

So first and foremost,

What I always tell any client is,

What is it that you really,

Really want?

You have to know what that is.

And once you understand your why and it's an enthusiastic why,

Well,

Then you're like 90% there.

You this has to be something that you really want.

It needs to line up with everything.

And if it doesn't,

There's a strong possibility that it might not work.

So here's what I'm going to say.

When you're going to create this resolution,

You're going to create this goal.

There's little things that you need to do.

The first is be very specific in what it is that you're doing.

You can't just say,

I'm going to lose weight.

I mean,

You can,

But what does that mean?

Are you going to lose one pound?

Are you going to lose 50 pounds?

Are you going to lose 100 pounds?

Like what is it?

You need to be specific.

I'm going to go to the gym.

How many days are you going to go to the gym?

How much time are you going to spend in the gym?

Let's be specific with what our resolution is.

Because we want it to be something that is measurable.

Like I said,

How much weight are you going to lose?

How often are you going to go to the gym?

What's your time frame for getting a new job?

We need it to be measurable.

And we also need it to be something that's achievable as well.

We can't do something that is just completely out of the realms of possibilities.

If you think that you can lose 100 pounds in three months,

You're setting yourself up for failure.

It's got to be something that we can achieve.

If you think that you can run the New York Marathon when you've never jogged before in your life and you think that you can just start in the beginning of the year and do it,

Is it achievable?

Possibly.

But this gets to the point of being realistic with our goals and our resolutions.

We need to make sure that what we're doing can actually be done.

If it's not realistic,

Then it's never going to follow through all the way.

I also think that it should be time sensitive.

This is part of the making SMART goals.

So we got the specific,

Measurable,

Achievable,

Realistic,

And time sensitive.

If you don't set a time frame for your resolution,

Well,

Then how do you know that you really are going to achieve it?

Something like quitting smoking is easy.

You can just sit there and say,

I'm going to quit smoking.

But that means that you didn't do a cold turkey.

And if that's not the way you want to quit smoking,

If you want to wean yourself off of it or start moving with nicotine patches and whatnot,

It's like,

Okay,

Well,

What's your time frame of being completely done with all that?

So make sure that you have some sort of time frame.

And then this way,

You'll know when you achieve your goal or you know if you need to extend it a little further or if it's working or not working.

One of the big things that I always say is get a partner.

Get a partner.

This will be someone who can be a bit of an accountability buddy.

If you're doing it on your own,

There's a good chance you can lapse and just kind of put it off and do everything.

If you have a friend that's like-minded,

If there's like a health coach or a personal trainer,

Just somebody that can be there for you,

Even just like a family member,

Somebody that can hold you accountable for the things that you're trying to do.

And then just always remember that failing is always an option.

We can't be too hard on ourselves.

If it doesn't work out,

Then it doesn't work out.

Or if it's something that we slip up on and say we want to work out every day and then there's one day that we don't work out,

That's okay.

If we want to eat healthier throughout the year and then one day we have a bacon cheeseburger and a piece of chocolate cake,

That's fine.

Failing is okay as long as we get back on the horse after we fall off.

There might be something that you made a resolution for that you thought you really wanted to do and as it turns out,

It's not something that you wanted to do.

You wanted to try painting watercolors and then you realize that it just doesn't make you happy.

It doesn't bring you any joy.

Well,

Then just let it go and be okay with that.

So that is my recommendations for creating New Year's resolutions.

I hope you found this useful.

If you like what you've heard today,

Please follow us on social media.

Subscribe to our newsletter.

Subscribe on InsideTimer.

That's the way you can hear when new things come out.

Also,

If you think that maybe working with a health coach might be a thing that could be good for you,

Then just go to our website,

Meditate.

Com and sign up for a free 90-minute consultation and we can have a discussion and see if working together is the right thing.

This is the perfect time of year for finding an accountability buddy and that's really in a lot of ways what a health coach does on a weekly basis with their clients.

So until we speak again,

I just want to say Happy New Year.

Be safe,

Be well,

And please be kind to everybody.