New Year but Not New You?
The New Year is a great time to wipe the slate clean and set goals for the future, however many good intentions to change result in piling on the guilt, stress and anxiety due to broken resolutions. Many of us fall into the category of ‘New Year, not New You’ as we aim to completely overhaul our life.
However even making small changes can have a ripple effect and lead to bigger things in the long run. Below are some tips to help bring about the change you want to see in 2020.
- Make a list of the things you would like to achieve – in the New Year and list these in order of importance to you. Tackle one thing at a time before moving on to the next. Trying to make lots of changes at once can be overwhelming and result in giving up.
- Spend time understanding the behavior you want to change – making a note of the following; when do you engage in this behavior, how are you feeling before it happens, what situations are you more tempted to do it. Reflecting on this will give you an insight into when you will be most tempted and so you are therefore more prepared to deal with this.
- Write down your goal and make it SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time Bound. This will give you a sense of direction and a clear path to its success check out for https://www.mindtools.com/page6.html for more information.
- Break down your goals into smaller steps – once you have your SMART goal break it down into smaller steps or milestones, for example your SMART goal might be to lose one stone in year, but this may involve many smaller goals: eat healthier, stop eating junk food, do more exercise. These milestones can be broken up into months/weeks/days. Start with one milestone, for example you may set yourself a daily goal of eating one extra piece of fruit and after a week increase that to two.
- Decide if you are willing to make one small daily change – if you aren’t prepared to make a daily change ask yourself is this something you truly want. You might discover it’s not something you are prepared to do and that is completely fine. A lot of goals can be the result of other people’s thought or opinions, it needs to be something important to you.
- Replace bad rewards with good rewards – for example, you have decided to stop eating chocolate but like a little treat at the end of the week. What other ways can you reward yourself that isn’t food related?
- Be accountable to someone you trust – you will make better choices and perform to a higher standard when you become accountable to someone. This is even better when you are accountable to each other as neither person wants to ‘let the side down’.
- Record your progress – look back each week and be encouraged. Successful people imagine the big picture but know the importance of celebrating the little small successes along the way, this lets them know they are moving in the right direction. As Confucius said “it doesn’t matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop”.
- Know that the motivation will go but do it anyway – Setting goals, being accountable, documenting your progress and giving yourself rewards are all great ways to keep up your motivation levels but know that even with all this there will be times you ‘just can’t be bothered’. At this point you need to make a choice in your mind to do it anyway regardless of how you feel. Your motivation will return, and you can be proud of yourself for doing something when you didn’t feel like it.
No matter what happens be proud of yourself for trying, you might fall short of your goal, but you will be closer than you were at the start of the year. Maybe you completely abandon it by March – well at least you did it for a quarter of the year. And remember there is always 2021.
If you feel you need help extra support to make changes Click here to contact me.
” It doesn’t matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop” Confucious.
Useful Links
https://www.psychologies.co.uk/self/how-to-make-small-changes-that-last.html
