For most people the start of the New Year is the time for renewal, a fresh beginning, a time to start on goals they may have put off the previous year.
It's no wonder then that so many of us decide to make New Year’s resolutions. 69% of us in fact will make at least one New Year’s resolution. This will be the year, we convince ourselves, where we will shed those extra kilos; where we will put an end to bad habits; where we will embark on projects that we’ve been meaning to start for a long time – that bathroom for example, won’t renovate itself; that book won’t write itself!
But this year will most likely be like all the other years that have gone before it. For the vast majority of us, starting afresh with good intentions is about as far as we will get.
Many of us think that the 1st of January is going to herald some great change. That a New Year will also mean a New Us. Except it doesn’t. We are still that same person we always were - we’re just that little bit older. It’s why every year our resolutions also pretty much remain the same. Every year almost all of us want to do at least one of the following: exercise more, lose weight, quit smoking, get a new job, do something fulfilling with our lives, improve our relationships, make more money, and drink less. Looking at that list you can’t help but think – what a cliché. Is any of this actually going to happen this year?
Sure the start of the New Year is great motivation to start on a goal – which is why come January every gym around the country is bursting to capacity. By March, however, most of the eager wannabe gym bunnies have disappeared. They’ve gone back to their usual ways.
Why? As Jonah Lehrer wrote in the Wall Street Journal back in 2009, “Willpower, like a bicep, can only exert itself so long before it gives out; it's an extremely limited mental resource”. He goes on to say, “Given its limitations, New Year's resolutions are exactly the wrong way to change our behaviour”.
This is because true change only really happens when we are committed to make such a change. My father-in-law for example, used to be a heavy drinker – he was a man who was known for his love of beer. But when he was told he had diabetes and that he faced a future that could lead to blindness, even death, he managed to curb his habit quick smart. Now it is rare for him to have a drink – and it’s been that way for at least the last decade.
We are creatures of habit, and we rarely change unless we truly see the change as a necessity. It doesn’t have to be the start of the year – it could be an average Wednesday in September for all it matters – when you’ve had enough of looking down and seeing your gut you make that change to lose weight; when you see your child having an asthma attack from inhaling your cigarette smoke you make that change to quit smoking. But until you deem it absolutely necessary that you make this change in your life, it won’t really happen.
There are many of us who will of course still persist in making New Year’s resolutions – it almost seems like tradition. Twitter is full of people tweeting about resolutions such as going on digital detoxes and being more patient with their fellow human beings (both of which they will fail at within the hour).
Of course, there is no harm in making “resolutions” if you’re doing it just for fun. But if you really want to make life-altering changes in your life and stick to them its best to abide by the following rules – stick to one goal and make it a small goal. So rather than saying for example, you want to exercise more, commit instead to walking 2kms three days a week – buy a calendar and mark off each day you achieve this goal.
It might be a small start, but at least it’s a start. And it’s achievable. Before you know it, achieving the small goals will lead to achieving the big goal. You might well turn out to be one of the very few people whose New Year’s resolution leads to a life-altering change.
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