Welcome to the New Year! This is the time when many of us review our lives and think about what we could do to improve ourselves, our situation and our lives. However surveys show that a whopping 43-95% of new years resolutions are abandoned by the end of January! Why? Well research shows us that most people are too unrealistic and drastic with their resolutions and focus on what they “should’ be doing rather than what is right for and realistic for them right now and at this moment in their lives. For instance, a busy working parent who sets a goal of going to the gym 5 days a week and running 5km by the end of January will probably fail, as being a working parent is a busy job! Finding extra time for exercise isn’t easy when you are caring for others. Actually it is downright difficult, especially if you are a single parent or you have young children.
Goal setting and working towards behavioural change is actually a really difficult psychological and emotional task. In the therapy room we use techniques such as Motivational Interviewing, Solution Focused scaling questions, the Stages of Change Model (Prochaska and DiClemente, 1983) and “Values” and “Committed Action” work from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT, Hayes 1982). However, starting therapy might sound like too much of a commitment just to start going to the gym, so here are some sound psychological tips that might help you make and achieve your new years resolutions.
- Be realistic! Don’t choose too many resolutions or goals at once. You have the whole year and not everything has to be achieved by the end of January. Also committing to too many things at once will just set you up for failure! For the exercise example here, it might be more realistic to think about doing a 5km running challenge by the end of May. Research shows that a gradual approach to increasing exercise and indeed most life changes is always more effective and sustainable in the long-term.
- Rather than goal setting, first think about your VALUES. Values are activities that give meaning to life and help people make choices based on their desired life directions. They are personal and can change moment to moment, and throughout your lifetime, but they are not the same as goals. Goals can be achieved, but values are something we always hold. Sometimes when life gets busy, we might not be in touch with our values, or we might lose sight of our values. It can be important, especially as a new year dawns to review our values and what is important to us.
Here is a list (not exhaustive) of common values: Health, Love, Kindness, Family, Friendship, Connection with others, Creativity, Wisdom, Honesty, Humour, Patience, Wealth, Freedom, Security/safety, Success, Faith, Tolerance, Appearance, Health, Competence, Growth, Honour, Privacy, Autonomy, Family, Efficiency, Passion.
For a new year’s resolution exercise choose one to three values that you feel you are presently losing sight of or not giving enough time to right now in your life?
Imagine the values as darts on this darts board.
How close are each of the values you have chosen to the bullseye i.e. the desired sweet spot in your life?
- Set SMART Goals to get your desired value closer to the bullseye. SMART Goals are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time limited. For instance if your chosen value is health and your desire is to get your health closer to your bullseye you might use SMART goals in this way.
- Specific: I want to start getting fit
- Measurable: I want to go the gym once or twice and week and train to run 5km
- Achievable: This will be achievable if I choose to go to the gym just once a week and do small runs twice a week, and if I sign-up to do a 5km running challenge with a friend by the beginning of the summer. With the time limits in my life right now, this plan should be realistic.
- Relevant: This is relevant as my doctor was concerned about my lack of aerobic exercise at my last health check. As well as this I want to make sure that my bones stay strong as my menopause is just around the corner.
- Time limited: Giving myself the goal of the summer is time limited, but also achievable. After the summer I will focus on getting another of my values closer to the bullseye e.g. the value of connection which would mean spending more time with my friends or keeping in better contact with my family.
- Think about your motivation and what might help it. On embarking on your SMART GOALS think about how motivated you are feeling. Scale your motivation between 0 = not motivated at all, and 10 = very motivated. If your motivation is 6, why isn’t it lower? What factors are making you so motivated? Write these factors down and put them somewhere where you can read them everyday. What else would help you to get your motivation up to an 8 or 9? Could it be just starting your new routine? Or finding a nice gym? Or hiring a personal trainer/life coach? Or exercising/running with another person/people? Or making the measures in the smart goals even more specific e.g. run 1km without stopping by the end of January, 2 km without stopping by the end of February etc etc.
With these tactics in mind you are now set-up to achieve something realistic and meaningful in 2025! Good Luck!