New Year's Resolutions Challenge

Happy New Year! Wishing you a very healthy, happy 12 months ahead. We've arrived at the first Monday of the year.

I hope that you had a really lovely Christmas and you managed to take an opportunity to fully recharge your batteries to go again soon.

I also hope you managed to keep up your healthy habits and you've been taking care of your physical, mental, emotional and social health over the holiday period. If you’ve let things slip, don’t worry as this newsletter comes out every Monday to help keep you focused, motivated and informed about evidence-based #healthyhabits.

I’m certain, like everybody else, you’ve recently spent a little time reflecting back on the year that’s just past and thought at least a little bit about the year that’s ahead. What major lessons did you learn in the past 12 months? What decisions did you make that you were really happy about? What decisions would you go back and change? What made you most proud? What are you next looking forward to most?

This newsletter is all about healthy habits, so we’d better talk about New Years Resolutions. Do they even work? In all the years of your life, have you ever had any success with this annual ritual?

It’s said that by the end of January, 80% of New Years Resolutions have been abandoned. This is due to two fundamental issues: (i) the goal setting isn’t done correctly and (ii) behaviour change isn’t easy. 

Here’s some advice to help you more likely succeed…

1. Choose something you deeply desire to permanently change. Focus on the cost of not doing it as well as the benefit/reward of getting it done. Are you more likely to take a painkiller or a vitamin pill? The more essential the problem matters to you, the more committed you’ll be towards the solution. For example, you might want to lose some weight based on what you view in the mirror, but would you be greater motivated to change if you knew you had high blood pressure or high cholesterol?
2. Choose a single focus. There might be a list of things you’d like to change, but you should avoid multi-tasking! Select the single task that you believe is most achievable in this moment and will have the highest impact. Read any of the habit books and they all say that gaining any small successes will begin a snowball effect and you’ll start to habit-stack as your confidence and momentum grows. Every long journey always begins with you just driving to the end of your street.
3. Keep it super simple. You’re highly motivated and are imagining making big changes from Day One and your willpower, stubborness, raw determination are going to see you through until you succeed. Big mistake! Only commit to small changes at this point and keep using the snowball effect to build momentum. Don’t be harsh or judgmental about yourself, your commitment or your progress. Keep things small & simple.
4. Don’t expect miracles. Santa Claus has been and gone for another year, so it’s time to get back to real life. Sustainable behaviour change needs two vital ingredients: (i) time and (ii) consistency. According to research, it takes an average of 66 days of committed, repeated behaviour to form a new habit, and even longer to break an old habit and quite a long time if that habit is long-term ingrained. 
5. Become Accountable. If you’ve only created your New Years Resolution in your head and tell no-one about it, you will fail. You’ve got to at least write your goal down, make it SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound) and ideally share it with at least one other person, asking them to hold you accountable. It’s also a good idea to commit a donation to charity if you achieve your goal.
6. Fail. Learn. Persevere. Expect setbacks. You’ll need all your resilience to succeed, especially when overcoming bad habits. Tell yourself it’s ok to have some wobbles now and again. Allow yourself enough (but not too much) wiggle room and don’t expect to be perfect all of the time. In fact, be curious when things go wrong and look for for learning outcomes that are there. If you find yourself failing too easily, then go back to 1. on this list and reconsider your approach.

I hope you’ve found these points helpful. To have better success, aim to look deeper ahead into the year rather than for just the month of January. Change takes time as well as commitment and consistency. You can do it!

Something that could also really help you keep focused for the next 365 days is to determine a single word that summarises what sort of year you want to have. Words such as “simplify”, “strive”, “brave”, “grateful” can become a single focus that determines all your actions and behaviours that lie ahead and can act like an anchor for you. Let me know in comments what you decide. I'm still pondering over my choice...

For the next 7 days, choose ONE (simple) thing that you can commit to every single day that will help get the snowball rolling. 

If you would like to talk to me about improving your Health & Performance in 2023, click here to set up a FREE discovery call with me and we can have a quick chat about how we could work together. Also, check out my Peak Health Plan here and subscribe to my mailing list here.

Or join me here for Season 3 of Oopla to help you meet the recommended weekly guidelines for physical activity.

Have a great first week of 2023. Keep up all your good habits.

#HealthyHabits

Sources: 

Here's How Long It Really Takes to Break a Habit, According to Science, 

Making Your Resolutions Stick: How to Create Healthy Habit