New Healthy Approach to New Year’s Resolutions

New Year’s Resolutions are not a way to create change, and generally, I think the concept is highly flawed.

It’s About Motivation

First of all, today’s modern society is motivated by deadlines. People will be disciplined because they don’t want to be late. Think about how motivated students would be if the teacher said, “Okay class. The project needs to be started by next Thursday.”

I’m sure someone will start their project before Thursday, but only that one overachiever. Everyone else will do what they want.

Let’s relate this to January first. It’s pre-January 1st, there are holiday festivities, and cookies, and candies… yum.

“Well, heck guys, we don’t need to behave because it’s before January 1st. We don’t need to. Except for those overachievers.”

Don’t you see how this is a bad way to go? Combine that with our attitude of gluttony around the holidays, and it’s even worse.

Attitude

I’ve heard people say, “Christmas only comes once per year.”

And that’s the wrong attitude. It comes every year, and it hangs around for about a month. Last year was the first Christmas where I didn’t OD on cookies, and it was nice.

Besides slacking before the start time, the lack of deadline gives no real motivation and no real goal before the deadline starts.

Be Stronger, Have a Goal

I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. I think they’re dumb, if you couldn’t infere.

My New Year’s Resolutions are backwards. I make January 1st the deadline for my goals. This is way more in-line with human nature. First of all, it’s deadline driven. People in the United States are deadline driven creatures. So I’ll make a goal like “lose 10 pounds by January 1st.”

By having that goal, I manage to steer away from too many cookies during the holiday season. It works for me, anyways.

Working toward a goal is different that working toward a behavior modification. A typical Resolution will be “go to the gym 5 days per week” or “take the stairs everyday at work,” and those would be great behaviors, but as goals, they are inherently flawed.

Gradual Change

Humans have problems making sudden departures from routine. Routines are known, routines are safe, and routines are efficient. A typical New Year’s Resolution is sudden and sharp. People go from eating holiday junk food to eating diet food, counting calories, and going to the gym. ALL AT ONCE.

Are you kidding me? The reason we like routines is because they are efficient. People simply don’t have time to make all these changes at once because it’s so inefficient and requires so much active thought and planning. They have to make time to make their lunch, go to the gym, and count their Calories at the end of the day. Working toward a goal is gradual.

Also, because it is gradual change, you’re building up to make it a positive habit that you incorporate into your life. Come January 1st, you’ll have these positive habits already in place. You feel good. All you have to do is keep up the good habits. Easy-peasy.

Being gradual, it’s also inherently more flexible.

All or Nothing, a Poor Approach

Resolutions are set up as an all or nothing rule. Goals like “go to the gym 4 days per week,” or “take the stairs everyday but Monday at work” are flawed because if you can’t go to the gym one day because of an emergency, then you’ll say “Well, unless there’s an emergency.”

It’s a slippery slope, and while you won’t track all of the exceptions, after a couple months you’ll say you’ll go unless there’s an emergency, you have a big deadline at work, the kids want to go to the mall, you have to get groceries, you have a networking event, and eventually, because you’re really tired from a long day.”

Now you go to the gym when it’s convenient, which it never is.

Allowing for Change

Since the habits to reach the goal are set by you, they are responsive to new information.

Maybe running 5 miles each day is your new habit, but you’ve learned that your feet hurt after 4, then you can change your goal to run 3 miles each day and do 50 burpees. It works better for you and is more customized than the blind decision of making yourself do something that you think will be good for you, but you’re just not meant to do it.

Goals and Changes versus Resolutions

Quit making resolutions. They might work for some people, but we’re all human. We’re not resolved at all. You will break them, and you will loose track.

By making a New Year’s Goal, you are setting a deadline, and you will be working towards that deadline. Not only that, but you will be establishing strong habits in a gradual, flexible way.

In this way, we can significantly improve our lives, and it won’t be significantly rearranging our lives like a New Year’s Resolution. Let’s make New Year’s Goals instead.

What is your New Year’s Goal?