Setting more impactful New Year Resolutions for long lasting positive change

As New Year approaches so does the tradition and desire to set resolutions and goals, but how often is it that we set them only to have broken them a few weeks or months later?

✏️Here are some ideas for increasing the chances of making long lasting positive change to your life.

✔️ Determine what you want

✔️ Ensure it is achievable

✔️ Use positive language to state the outcome you want

✔️ Understand how you know when you have achieved it

✔️ Determine what needs to be done / what's the first step?

✔️ Approach it from an "abundance mindset"

✔️ Consider what things might trip you up along the way

✔️ Follow the 80/20 rule

Determining what you want is the first step in setting a goal or resolution, but it is also important at this stage to ensure it is realistic and achievable. At New Year it is common for people to be super enthusiastic about things and to set goals that are only sustainable in the short term. Examples of this are extreme diets, or fitness routines which will see quick results if we stick to them, but do not bode well for long lasting change. This is because they often require such a drastic change in lifestyle that they are hard to maintain, especially when other events come up where we forego our plans in the short term and then find it hard to get back on track, and often give up feeling like we have failed. By considering these things before we set the goals we can make them more realistic, and also have the chance to plan what we will do in situations where we can't, or choose not to follow the plan temporarily.

It is also really helpful to set goals in terms of what you want rather than want you don't want. For example, instead of "I don't want to feel so fat and frumpy anymore", choose something like, "I want to feel fit and healthy in my body". You can then look at the question of how will you know when you have achieved it? What would that look or feel like? In the same example, feeling fit and healthy, to one person might be achieved when they have been able to complete a marathon, to another person that might be about feeling comfortable in their clothes, and to another it might be walking to the shop without getting out of breath. Make it personal to you and what you want to achieve.

The next step is to figure out the first step towards the goal. In the example given, will it be about the food you eat, taking more exercise, drinking more water or something else? What step will you take first? It is also helpful here to consider what you are adding to your life to do this, rather than focussing on what you will remove, (abundance mindset), so for example, instead of "I am going to stop eating chips", which sounds pretty unachievable for the long term, and miserable, especially if they are one of your favourite things; (Are you really never going to eat a chip EVER AGAIN?), go for something like, "I will add an extra portion/two portions of veg to each meal", (which in turn helps to achieve eating fewer chips). By coming from an abundance mindset your brain focusses on the idea of getting more instead of losing out on something which in turn keeps it achievable and sustainable. Is also helps to keep it realistic in situations where you are faced with foods that you have removed from your diet. You may feel like you are missing out when other people are getting to eat them, or the smell overwhelms you and your temptation to eat them cannot be tamed. When you restrict and then feel miserable, or give into temptation you can feel like a failure which leads to feelings of guilt and shame which can in turn lead us to give up altogether, and punish ourselves, often by eating more and more food that doesn’t serve us. By coming at it from an abundance mindset, you can still eat the chips! You don’t fail by eating the chips! You can in most circumstances still add your veg to your plate and if not so what?

This is where also predicting situations that might trip you up can be useful. If you are choosing to add more veg to your plate and you are invited to a party buffet, the chances are that veg might be limited. So knowing that, you can plan for these situations. You might decide that in that particular situation it’s ok to let it go and get back on track at the next meal. You might decide to eat before you go so you are less tempted by the food that is there or you might decide to take some salad or veg with you to go with the party food. In addition, when you follow the 80/20 rule, which is when you are doing all the things you need to do to achieve your goal 80% of the time, and giving yourself 20% for when you’re not, the easier it is to stick with the changes you make and the less guilt you feel when you are in situations where you can’t follow the plan exactly.

I have used one particular example here relating to diet, but these tips apply to any type of positive change you want to make in your life, and all the steps that need to be taken in order to achieve it. They will help to organise your thoughts and keep you on task, but most of all they will help you achieve your goals and make long lasting changes.

In my coaching and therapy work I can help you to identify what positive changes you want to make in your life, guide you through the steps, and give you the tools you need to achieve them. You may not know what you want to change, just that something needs to change and that’s ok too. My training allows me to prompt you with appropriate questions that will help make things become clearer.

If you would like to discuss what changes you would like to make, or anything else relating to this topic, please pop me an email melanie.phipps@positivelypda.co.uk

P.S. You can make positive changes any time of the year, not just at New Year. If something isn’t serving you and you want to change it let’s have a chat and see what we can do about it.