How long did you manage to keep your New Year’s resolutions last year? A day? A week? A month?
If you abandoned your resolutions about the same time that you took the tree down, you’re certainly in good company. According to Los Angeles psychologist Robert R. Butterworth, 80 percent of the people who make New Year’s resolutions have thrown in the towel by the third week in January.
Butterworth isn’t the only one to give New Year’s resolutions the thumbs down, of course. Alan Marlatt, a psychology professor at the University of Washington, recently discovered that only 40 percent of those who successfully keep their resolutions do so on their first attempt.
So what is it that motivates us to set ourselves up for failure year after year? Aren’t the midwinter blahs enough to bring our spirits down without throwing in broken resolutions to boot?
According to Butterworth, the urge to make a new start each Jan. 1 is deeply rooted in our cultural traditions.
“People have a need to wipe the slate clean at the end of the year,” he explained. “This is linked to ancient year-end rituals in which the past was forgotten and one was allowed to begin one’s history again.”
If you’re getting tired of seeing history repeat itself year after year in the form of failed resolutions, why not do yourself a favor and handle your New Year’s resolutions a little differently this year? Rather than resolving to lose weight, quit smoking, or join a gym, make one resolution and one resolution only: Resolve not to make any resolutions at all!
Despite what you might think, getting off the resolution bandwagon doesn’t mean you’re doomed to be stuck with your bad habits forever, said Laura Berman Fortgang, author of “Take Yourself to the Top” (Warner, $13.99). If you’re still determined to make some changes to your life, simply go at them in a manner that gives you decent odds of succeeding.
For most people, that means considering the behavior that you hope to change and then finding ways to tackle the underlying problem. Many people doom themselves to failure by skipping this all-important step, Fortgang said.
“Rather than forcing yourself to give up a particular habit before you’re ready, consider what unmet inner need is motivating that habit,” she said. “If the habit you hope to break is smoking, you need to find ways to love yourself enough that you wouldn’t even consider having a cigarette.”
People who hope to lose weight need to take a similar approach, she said. Rather than focusing on the fact that you want to lose weight, stop and think about why you’re carrying that extra weight in the first place. Do you have a tendency to snack when you’re under a lot of stress? Do you pack so much activity into a typical day that you don’t have any time to make it to the gym? Those are the factors that you need to deal with if you hope to drop some of those extra pounds.
Fortgang recalled an instance in which she helped a client to improve poor eating habits. The client was heading home for the holidays with a list of all the things she wasn’t going to do. She wasn’t going to eat any sweets, she wasn’t going to eat after 8 p.m., and so on. Fortgang suggested that the client focus on who she wanted to be rather than what she wasn’t going to allow herself to do.
“She decided that she wanted to be someone who ate healthy foods and who handled her emotions without overeating.” The shift in mindset was all that this client needed to get on the road to healthy eating.
While it’s important to understand why you behave the way you do, it’s also important to be realistic about the effort that is involved to make a meaningful long-term change, said Harvey Mackay, author of “Pushing the Envelope All the Way to the Top” (Ballantine, $24.95). “Changing habits is probably the toughest thing you can do.”
That’s why most psychologists, including Butterworth, recommend that people who are making significant changes to their lives take things one step at a time: “Instead of making a 180-degree change that you can’t sustain, aim for a 45-degree change that is achievable.”
It’s better to commit to a small, measurable change than to pay lip service to some grandiose self-improvement scheme that you haven’t got a hope of carrying out, said John Nathan, a psychotherapist in New York.
“People tend to set the bar too high without having a realistic sense of what it is they’re taking on,” he said. “If you’re trying to get into shape, you might consider joining a gym and committing to get there just once a week for the first month. If you go more, great, but just see what it takes to get there once a week first.”
Starting small can reap some big rewards, said Jyl Steinback, an expert on healthy living. “Reaching and achieving these initial goals is rewarding and will motivate you to stay on track.”
One of the keys to staying motivated over the long haul is to have a good support system in place. Rather than trying to usher in these changes on your own, talk to friends and family members about the changes you’re hoping to make, and ask them to support your efforts.
If you’re really lucky, you’ll find someone who can “coach” you through the process and act as your cheerleader too.
“It’s important to find someone in your life who will hold you accountable. Once you’ve found such a person, you need to train them to support you,” said Fortgang. “If you leave everything to willpower, you’re going to lose the battle.”
Mackay is also a firm believer in the power of coaching. In fact, he admitted to using a series of coaches to help him reach his goals in different areas in his own life: a speech coach, a writing coach, an idea coach, a marathon coach, a golf coach, a tennis coach, and a skiing coach. “You need someone who will push you without questions: a coach, a teacher, a mentor.”
While it’s important to have other people cheering you along, however, in the end the only one you’re truly accountable to is yourself, Fortgang stressed. If you find yourself saying you “should” quit smoking rather than that you “want” to quit smoking, it could be because you’re responding to other people’s expectations of you rather than your own desire to make a change.
Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that change is a process that takes time and energy. If you expect to work miracles overnight, you’ll become discouraged and might even give up your self-improvement plans altogether. That’s why the nicest thing you can do for yourself in 1999 is to resolve not to make any New Year’s resolutions at all.
CLICK US NOT ON TEMPTATION
If you’re still having a hard time finding the willpower to make lasting changes in your life, you just might find the inspiration you’re looking for on-line!
Better Health, the Health channel at iVillage.com, has introduced a free service that’s designed to keep you on track. The channel’s “Digital Conscience” tool delivers weekly reminders about what you’re trying to achieve. James Parmakian, iVillage spokesman, said you can customize the reminder service to provide the maximum in motivation.
“You can choose from a mother, coach or best friend figure to deliver the prod which is needed to motivate and inspire.”
You can sign up for the service at http://www.betterhealth.com/digital.
