Welcome back after the Christmas break – I hope you had a good one. I always find that there’s plenty of time to think during the holidays, as work comes to a virtual standstill for almost two weeks. Perhaps that’s why so many people’s thoughts turn to New Year’s Resolutions at this time of year– without the goals and the day-to-day pressure of work a ‘guilt switch’ seems to get tripped and we start to hunt for new challenges to focus on in the year ahead. In some ways you could say the obsession with starting afresh in January is healthy – it provides us with tangible targets to achieve and if that target is something positive like quitting smoking or doing more exercise then that’s definitely a good thing. But I wonder how many New Year’s resolutions ever get fully implemented – 10%; 20%? Even less maybe? Someone should run a survey at the end of the summer to find out how many people followed through on the promises they made to themselves in January.
The problem is that, very often, making the resolution and how we feel as a result of that pledge is more important than actually going through with it. When people spend a week eating and drinking they end up feeling like they are unhealthy, so the natural thing to do is to make a promise to yourself that you will change your lifestyle in the year to come. Result: the promise makes you feel better in the moment by banishing your guilt on the basis of positive (but often empty) intentions.
So my advice this New Year is to think carefully about the benefits of achieving the goal rather than taking all of the benefits upfront when you make the promise to yourself. If you want a healthier life style think about the results that this will lead to – e.g. playing more actively with the kids, running a marathon. Focus on these results as the goal instead of making the promise in the first place.
