The "Now Year's Resolution"

September is now drawing to a close, the winter months are upon us and in just over 3 months time everyone will be making their New Year's Resolutions.

Have you thought about yours?

I have. My New Years resolution is to stop making New Years resolutions. I'm sure you've heard that a thousand times, probably mostly from people who are sick of breaking their resolutions over and over until they've just decide to avoid the inevitable disappointment in the first place.

The reason people fail when making new years resolutions is because they didn't want it enough to do it now. What makes people think if they if they're not motivated enough now that they will be when January comes around? I read an article about the science of behaviour change that simple states the 3 main actions to take when wanting or attempting to change a certain behaviour, based on B.J. Fogg and Charles Duhigg. I've added a side note in here that I find very helpful to remember. Here's my breakdown of these steps;

1# Pick a SMALL action

If you're wanting to add a new habit into your life, it must be something small. You can always elaborate on it later once the ball is already rolling. Stating you will "eat healthier" will just not do. We all want to instantly be better people overnight but we must realise that, if we want lasting change to set in we have to be realistic!

Instead of "eat healthier" try saying "I will add kale to my morning smoothie" or switch "exercise more" for "I will walk to work each morning instead of getting the bus". This way you have a goal and it is small, easily completed and not too much strain.

Side Note:

BE SPECIFIC! Stating that you will "drink less alcohol" or "start running" is not specific. You must define the goal you want to achieve so your intentions and more importantly, your actions can match the target or goal you've set for yourself. Give yourself a measurement, a deadline - a number! Along the lines of "I will only drink 1 glass of wine per week", "I will run for 10 minutes, twice per week" or "I will write 2 blog posts by Sunday at 9pm every week".

"If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living." -Gail Sheehy

Once you start achieving the smaller goals it will set the path to achieving the bigger goals. When you learn a subject in school they don't just tell you everything you need to know about everything in one long lecture. That's because you can't process huge loads of information at once so it's broken down into bite size pieces and fed to you over a period of time and repeated. This way, the repetition of learning the same thing over and over enables it to become part of you so you remember it. The same goes for habit change. You're already conditioned to work your day in a particular way through doing it over and over again. It's the foundation of how you live - trying to change everything about that all at once will leave you confused and exhausted. It's basically as if you're trying to be a different person every single day. Imagine how much energy that will take out of you! This is why it may last a little while but is ultimately unsustainable.

2# Attach the new habit to an existing habit

In some terms, this is referred to as "anchoring". When you anchor an existing task to a new habit you want to form it gives you cues to complete the new habit. A personal example would be my vitamins 3 times a day. With breakfast, lunch and dinner. Every day I'd wake up with the intention of taking them. I tried "everything" to remember. I set reminders on my phone, I left them out on my night stand and I even put them in my bag the night before with hopes of remembering before it was too late! Only to find them there, untouched at the end of the day. I even went as far as leaving small bags of them in places I was likely to be, however small clear bags of pills lying around your desk at work became something of a discussion topic in the office...

I thought to anchor them to an existing habit and so, each night, instead of the night stand - where I may see them in the morning but not have any water to take them with - I'd put them in the kitchen by the tap. As simple as that! Now I wake up, I go to the kitchen to get my lunch from the fridge, I take my vitamins, then (this is the brilliant part) I PUT THEM IN MY LUNCH BAG! So when I have my lunch, I take my vitamins!!!! The best part is... When I get home to have dinner and prepare my lunch for the next day.... There they are! I take them from the lunch bag, I have them with dinner, I refill and put them back by the tap. Clockwork. I anchored taking my vitamins to having or preparing a meal. Simple and effective.

You will not believe how proud I am of my system (or maybe my excitement gives it away) but the same goes for any other habit! In the past I've also anchored bad habits to existing tasks unintentionally. I used to smoke and every time I'd get into my car, immediately I'd light up a cigarette. I'd do it without thinking and it wasn't until I gave up smoking that I realised I'd done this.

Anchoring habits to tasks, however mundane they seem is an incredibly powerful way to change your ways, for bad or good. The choice is yours.

3# Make it easy for the first week or so

You'll be glad to know that my vitamin system ties in nicely with the final step! Have I said vitamins enough yet? Vitamins, vitamins, vitamins! Okay I'm done...... VITAMINS! It doesn't look or sound like a real word to me now so I'll drop it here.

Making it easy for yourself is the best way to get your plan into action without it being too big a challenge, enough to give up or too much of a strain on your life so that it's still sustainable. For instance, if your goal is to do yoga every morning, lay out your mat the night before. At first I used to find it helpful to wear something to bed I was able to practice yoga in. That way all I had to do was roll out of bed and onto the mat, I'm sure half the time I was unconscious still but I hear sleep-yoging is a hot trend these days! They do say to practice something until you can do it in your sleep...

"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change." -Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

All of yours and my habits, bad or good, were formed in this way. Whether we knew it or not. It really is the easiest way to make change of what you want to.

Going back to my original point, with these facts in mind - why wait until new years? Is there really any point? Do you think anything will be different once the clock strikes midnight and it's 2019? Probably not, because enough thought hasn't been given to what you want to change. A plan hasn't been formulated. It's much more difficult to actually keep it going when you don't put the necessary things in place.

The point is, in order to make lasting changes have to lay foundations to be successful. As I said, it's likely you can stick it out for a bit but, do you want to make real, lasting change or just for a few weeks so you can unsustainably become "new you" for a while, only to have old habits creep back in, take over and make you feel like a failure year after year? If you answered 'no' then we're on the same page.

If I want to make a change in my life, it's better to begin adjusting slowly. So when the final 12'o'clock of the year rolls around, I'm already becoming the person I want to be.

Personal development is exactly what it says on the tin - development that's personal to you. It's a journey not a race- it's just you! Ease yourself in, do not compare yourself to other people, let yourself mess up just don't give up and finally, don't wait. If you really want it, you'll do it now. If you're not ready to, that's okay - just don't kid yourself that you will be on New Years Eve.

"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." -George Bernard Shaw

I can happily say, this is the first time I've set myself a New Years Resolution I will actually achieve. As the saying goes, it's now or never!

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Written by Charlotte Deverill