Each year, 45% of Americans make resolutions, most often about losing weight, exercising, reducing debt, or other areas of self improvement (1). Of those 45%, only about 20% of people actually stick to their resolutions (1). And, even still, only about 8% of people are successful in achieving these resolutions (2).
I am no different and am a repeat offender of making the resolution and failing to see it through. I have learned that the problem with my New Year's Resolutions is that they are often impossible to keep. I aim so high because I want to achieve so much - weight loss, exercise more, watch less TV, eat better, read more, start a hobby, etc. But I lack realism in the resolutions I set. I have had the tendency to think of a resolution as a magical problem-solvers - as if the switch will flip on January 1 and I will be able to achieve all of the things I haven't been able to achieve prior to that date.
The fact is, resolutions are really just goals and a series of choices made to achieve those goals. I don't say that lightly: achieving goals can be difficult, especially when the goal involves great change. But goals are not magical solutions: they utilize a plan for how to go about achieving the goal, and they involve making choices each day that support the goal - or detract from the goal. With a goal, we allow ourselves to fall down and get back up. With resolutions, it's almost as if we wait to fail to let ourselves off the hook from having to try and keep it. At least, that's been my experience.
I think it is good to look at the New Year as an opportunity for hope and change; I think anytime of the year is a good time for this when the change we want to make is for our good - there is nothing special about January 1. But I intend to focus on the goal in this next year- what do I really want to achieve? For me, I am seeking to live well in this next year. I have set specific goals:
- clean eating,
- exercising regularly,
- being intentional about relationships, and,
- living life to the fullest.
And I plan to take it day by day - working to make the best decisions that help me achieve these goals each day. But I am not going to beat myself up and quit on myself if I make a bad choice once in a day - or one entire day, or even a week. I am going to accept that, learn from it and try to figure out why I made the bad choice so I can make a better choice next time. And most important, I am going to move on to the next day to make better choices.
I guess you could say that one of my goals is to be real with myself. That doesn't mean I am not setting lofty goals - eating clean and exercising regularly are not new goals for me, nor are they easy by any stretch of the means. But I have balanced those two goals out with two other goals, relationships and living a full life, that are not as difficult for me. On the flip side, by husband would say exercising regularly and eating clean come easier to him than the other two. I think that's part of the success factor though - having a combination of goals that are really difficult and ones that are not as difficult. It's kind of like when I was in high school and the counselor advised me about picking colleges: make sure you pick 1-3 reach schools - schools I would be lucky to get into; pick 3-5 schools that I was reasonably sure I would be accepted to; and, pick 1-2 schools that would be shoe-ins. The concept is to vary the difficulty levels - I think that is always they key to success in goal setting. Having success rather easily in some goals will encourage us to keep after the harder goals.
For me, part of achieving my goals is accepting that I will make mistakes along the way - and that is OK. But I can't let myself quit on achieving my goals. I know when 2014 rolls around I will thank myself for sticking with my goals and seeing how much I have accomplished in a year - mistakes and all.
1. Cone Health, New Year's Resolution Statistics, December 2011. http://media.trb.com/media/acrobat/2011-12/252800860-26172927.pdf
2. University of Scranton. Journal of Clinical Psychology. December 13, 2012. http://www.statisticbrain.com/new-years-resolution-statistics/
