It’s that time of the year again! The year 2020 is over (Thank God Right?!) and it’s time to create our New Year’s resolution. How many years have passed since we established a resolution only to fall off within the first month? It is such a common occurrence, but why? We always enter into the year with the best of intentions. We plan to lose weight, become healthier, and accomplish something that we have been meaning to accomplish for years past. So let’s figure out why resolutions fail and how we can succeed year after year.
The initial problem with resolutions is actually the resolution itself. We have an incredibly vague idea of the thing we want to accomplish. But how do you get there? If you walked into a bank and told them that you want a million dollars to start a business, what do you think they would ask? What’s the business? Are you selling products or services? “I have no plan just give me the money I’ll figure it out”. We can all agree that you probably won’t get the money, because you don’t have a business plan. You can’t expect to reach a goal with no plan. To conquer your resolution you need to create specific goals and have a clear cut path to reach those goals. It’s also best to write everything down so that you have a solid reminder of your path. Let’s dive in!
SMART
SMART stands for specific, measureable, attainable, relevant, and time. It’s highly possible that you have heard this mnemonic before, but I’m going to dive a little deeper. This is just a start to creating the path to a successful resolution. So let us first understand what makes a goal SMART.
Specific – Your goal needs to be more specific. “I want to lose weight” is far too vague to be considered a goal. If you were one pound lighter at the end of the year would it have been successful? Probably not. Creating a specific goal of losing 40 pounds by the end of the year has a clear goal with an obvious end result.
The goal of 40 pounds also makes it Measurable. You can clearly see whether or not you are making progress towards that goal. If you are managing to drop a pound a week then you can see the progress on the scale to get to your goal weight.
Just because it’s specific and measurable it also needs to be Attainable. Goals that are far too ambitious have much higher chances of failing. I’m not challenging your will power and it shouldn’t take that much will power to work towards your goal. You will eventually get burned out and revert back to the old habits, because that’s your comfort zone. You might want to lose 100 pounds by the end of the year, but is that attainable? That breaks down to about 8 pounds a month, or 2 pounds a week.
Losing 2 pounds a week sounds doable, and if you do fall into the obese category then it starts off even easier. However, is this goal actually Relevant to your real goal? You probably want to lose weight because you are overweight. But is it the way you look, or is it all the afflictions that come with being overweight? Just because you lost weight that doesn’t make you healthier.
Finally, you need to have some sort of Time frame to complete your goal. It would be best to break down a goal to create multiple time frames that would result in your end goal. So losing 40 pounds for the year would break down to about 3-4 pounds a month. So you could say that you are trying to lose about a pound a week in order to reach your goal. Now that you have a better idea of creating your resolution let us discuss creating an even SMART-ER goal.
The SMART-ER GOAL
My expertise is in health and fitness so I’m going to stick with the goal of becoming healthier. It would do everyone a great deal of justice to drop the idea of losing weight. Honestly you just want to become a healthier person, right? You want to get rid of all the afflictions that come with being overweight. You typically have high cholesterol, difficulty breathing, low stamina, high blood pressure, back pain, and a difficult time just completing daily tasks. In other words you want to create a healthy lifestyle that allows you to be free of medications and to move about your daily life without worry. So stop looking at the scale and let us focus on changing your lifestyle.
I want to first reiterate why the typical resolution fails. “My resolution is to lose weight. I’m going to start eating healthy, waking up early, and going to the gym 5 days a week.” Can you define eating healthier? Why do you plan to wake up earlier, and how early is early? What kind of workouts do you plan to do at the gym? There are so many holes with a resolution like this, but the biggest thing is that you are completely changing everything you have probably done your entire life in one day. It is far too ambitious for any human being to accomplish. So what should you do?
Start Small
Create a small list of about five aspects of your life you want to change to become healthier. Pick only one. Now write out a plan of how you are going to incorporate this new habit into your life. Also determine a time frame in which you would feel fully confident that it is now fully ingrained into your habits.
For example, you absolutely love soda and tend to drink at least 5 cans a day. You create a goal to drink only 2 cans a day at home, but allow yourself to still have a cup or 2 if you go out to eat. After 2 weeks this has become easy and enough and try to go down to just 1 can a day and still allow some at restaurants. After 2 more weeks, you are confident on replacing all your consumption at home to sparkling water and regular water. You’ve compromised by allowing soda when you go out to eat. See how each step has led to a much healthier lifestyle?
I can’t move on without an example if getting exercise. You determine that with the way your life is laid out you are willing to dedicate 20 minutes 3 days a week to exercise. You don’t want to go to a gym so you start with a 20 minute walk. After the first walk you feel that 20 minutes is too much. So you break it up to 10 minute walks after lunch and dinner. This is much easier and extremely doable for you. After 2 weeks you are starting to enjoy the benefits of the walk and add an additional 1-2 days. After 2 more weeks you try another 20 minute walk and find it is much easier than the first time. You decide to retry the original dedication of 20 minutes 3 days a week. You not only accomplish this for 2 weeks, but took it a step higher by still getting some 10 minute walks after meals. You decide to take it a step further and go for 30 minute walks 3 days a week. After these 8 weeks you have lost 6 pounds, your stamina has improved, and you feel more energized.
You know yourself the best. Just because you read and hear everything that works or that you are supposed to be doing, you know your starting line and the first step you are willing to take.
Build your resolution
As you have seen, one ultimate goal is really a bunch of little goals that build up to the real thing. So let’s take the goal of losing 40 pounds and rebuild it with a different mindset. We are going to lose 40 pounds by developing healthier habits to take care of our one and only body. We are going to achieve this by implementing a new habit every month which gives us 12 brand new habits for our new healthy lifestyle. Each month we will write down 5 habits we want to work on and pick the one we feel the most confident incorporating for that month. You aren’t going to check the scale to see your progress. Instead, you will keep track of how well you are adhering to the new habits that you set for yourself each month.
This is how you should break down your resolution so that you have a specific plan laid out to achieve your goal. Without creating the path to follow you will be walking through the forest in circles only to find yourself back where you started. Trust the process! There are two tools at your disposal that can help you along the way.
Write it down
Writing everything down not only gets it out of your head and into the real world, but it also makes it much more tangible. Writing down your goals and your plans has been shown to help people adhere to their plans. It also serves as a constant reminder of the goals you have put into place.
Don’t just write down your goals and your path that you are creating, but keep track too. Marking down each day that you successfully completed your new habit is absolutely gratifying. This daily instant gratification will help to keep pushing you forward on your journey. You can physically see the progress that you are making and be proud of how well you have done to reach that resolution. I have a FREE printable tracker available at the end of this post.
Accountability
Having someone to help hold you accountable for your actions is also a massive help. Having a close friend or family member to help you on this journey is like having a cheerleader just for you. Time always flies by a lot quicker when you have to drive a long distance when someone else is there with you. This can be someone to just check in with you to make sure you are sticking to the habits. It can also be someone that shares the same goal, so you both hold each other accountable thereby creating a collective effort. You can always pay someone too, like a trainer, to check in and even help you create the next habit you would like to work on. This is another reason why so many people fail to stick to their healthy journey. Having someone there to cheer you on and celebrate those small wins is an amazing feeling.
Step by Step Summary
- Create a clear and specific resolution
- Write it down
- Take a good long look at yourself and your history so you can be aware of what works for you
- Break down the resolution into smaller more manageable goals
- Write everything down
- Find the first habit that you have full confidence you accomplish
- Find your accountability partner to keep you in check
- Give yourself 1-4 weeks to implement the new habit before moving onto the next one
- Trust the process and keep moving forward
You are not a failure if you can’t follow with what you set out to do. You have decades of habits that you are trying to change, so it’s only natural some habits resistant to change. All it means is that that change was a bit too challenging to implement into your life at that moment. Take a deep breath, find something else to work on, and try again at a later time. You are not a failure, you just weren’t quite ready for it. That’s all! After you get a few wins with some other changes then revisit to try again. Or regress the change like I did in my example of starting to exercise. So Happy New Year! Go get’em tiger!
