Making Unusual New Years Resolutions

The New Year is just around the corner, and if you’re like most of the population, you’re probably taking this opportunity to reflect on the last year. When you look at the previous 12 months, you are probably evaluating if you are on the proper trajectory for your life. If there are areas that you feel are inadequate, it is likely those areas will be on a New Year’s resolution list.

Let’s consider the average New Year’s resolution. In December of 2023, Forbes Health published an article with some alarming statistics about these resolutions. The top five resolutions were: improve fitness, improve finances, improve mental health, lose weight, and improve diet. More on those to follow. Think about your previous resolutions and the ones you’re considering for the new year. How long do you think you’ll last? This article estimates that 80% of people fall off with their resolutions within 6 months! Why do you think that is?

There could be a wide variety of reasons people don’t keep their commitments to themselves. Maybe the goal was set too high. Maybe there was a life event that came up. Perhaps they wanted to want the goal more than they wanted the goal. Sometimes the goal can be too vague or too specific. One bad day may have knocked them off track, and they weren’t able to get back on the horse.

Here's what I would like to do: Let’s look closely at these resolutions. If you’re like the majority, you will likely be setting a goal to improve your health in some way. I want to discourage you from setting a goal like “I want to lose weight,” or even “I want to lose 20 pounds by June first.” The latter is even worded in a SMART goal format (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely), but I still don’t like it. My advice to you, if you really want to see change in your life

• Replace This: Improve Fitness With This: Work out for 30 minutes, 3 times per week

• Replace This: Improve mental health With This: Take 15 minutes every day to focus on my mental health (journaling, meditation, visualization, etc.)

• Replace This: Lose weight With This: Stay below my calorie goal each day

• Replace This: Improve diet With This: Plan meals for the week

The hard part about achieving our goals is allocating the appropriate time and energy to that objective. If we focus more on the calories than we do the pounds, results will follow. Long and short-term goals are great. It’s awesome to challenge ourselves in new and exciting ways. But, if you want to make something last, it must be behavior based. The other cool thing about setting behavior-based goals is that they can change over time. Let’s look at weight loss. Perhaps, you want to lose twenty pounds in six months. If you lose 20 pounds in five months, congratulations! You did it! But, now what? Conversely, if you only dropped 15 pounds in seven months, are you a failure? I don’t think so, but you didn’t meet your goal. If you did meet the goal, maybe a follow-on goal would be to gain 5 pounds of muscle. In this case, your resolution of maintaining your calorie count each day would still be helpful for you to achieve your goal!

It's a good and healthy thing to want to improve. Make sure that you’re aiming at the right targets, though. Focusing on the result is flashy and appealing, but if you want a lasting change in your life, start with the behaviors that will produce the results you want.