What are your New Year resolutions? Are they the same as the ones you failed to keep last year? Why is it so hard to keep New Year resolutions? And is ‘failing’ a bad thing, or should we plan for it?
The truth is that resolutions are usually about habits - breaking old ones and/or making new ones. But for the vast majority of people, doing that successfully is much easier to say than to do. That’s why most people who try to, for example, give up smoking or drinking, relapse after a short while. It’s why people stop going to the gym. Humans are creatures of habit, so changing them is really difficult.
But ‘failing’ isn’t a bad thing, as long as we build failure into our resolution to change. Yes, I know, I’m telling you to actually plan to fail. However, if you accept that it takes smokers somewhere between 6 and 30 attempts to successfully stop, then it would be crazy not to build that knowledge into your quitting plan.
The problem is that we expect to be able to change habits instantly, and regard any mistakes as a complete failure. So when we make our New Year resolutions, it’s an all or nothing approach. We tell ourselves we’ll go to the gym at least three days a week, and when we inevitably can’t keep that up, we regard it as failure, our motivation drops, and we stop going all together.
So here’s a better way. Firstly, allow yourself the possibility (or certainty?) of short term failure. Acknowledge that breaking your old habit or creating your new one will not be a smooth process. Focus on long term success, and a bumpy ride to get there.
Then, give yourself a short term target. Aim to quit smoking for one week, or aim to go to the gym three days a week for one month. If you make it, good for you. You can then set yourself a new, more challenging target.
If you fail, don’t beat yourself up about it. Take a step back and analyse what went wrong. Did you have that drink because you were around other drinkers? Did you fail to get up for your morning run because you went to bed late? Did you eat that cake because you felt stressed out?
Then consider what you could do next time to avoid the same thing happening - avoid going to bars for a while, make sure you get to bed by a certain time, go for a walk next time you feel stressed out instead of going to the fridge. Set your new goal, and try again.
So failing is fine - as long as you can pick yourself up and keep going. If you don’t plan for failure, you’ll probably find yourself a year from now making the same resolutions.
