Reducing Stress: Seeing your New Year Resolutions through to the End

It's a new year and fresh starts are always a clean slate, allowing a way to put some things behind you and begin again. 

According to a new survey from Forbes Health, the top resolutions for 2024 are to improve fitness, finances and mental health.  So it's clear that people really want to do well, take care of themselves, stay out of debt and feel better emotionally and psychologically.  But where do we begin?

Reaching these kinds of goals takes a lot of determination and consistency in behavior and schedule.  So finding ways to approach the problems of inconsistency and broken schedules is a great place to begin.  In other words, how to stay on track with your new goals and themes for the year.

Here is a simple method to consider:  First, limit the plan to as few items as possible.  Second, keep the goal and expectation within reach (even a little low if necessary).  Third, place expectations and consistency at an equal level.  So the summary of the plan is:  A) few items, B) expectations within reach, and C) keeping expectations and consistency equal.

So here is an example:  Let's say you want to lose 10 pounds.  The first step is to keep that simple, not decide it also includes joining a gym, running 5 miles a day to reach it, altering your entire diet, and increasing the number of times you walk the dog a day to increase steps all to reach the goal of losing 10 pounds.  Instead, the simple goal is just one goal, and that is to drop 10 pounds.  

Next, you want to set the expectations for your 10 pound weight loss within reasonable reach.  Calculating a reasonable number of pounds to drop per week, how to do that based on caloric intake and caloric burning, and determine a reasonable amount of activities or diet restrictions that can actually be reached on a daily and weekly basis.  The key wording her is "reasonable expectations" of yourself and the diet, not unreasonable or even impossible.

Finally, you would determine what you can reasonably do on a consistent basis to reach these tasks and goal.  Such as how far you can reasonably run if not 5 miles a day, and how many sit up or miles walked can your reasonably or actually fit in to your busy schedule without overloading yourself and starting to fail at the  task?

Last year I wrote about setting "themes" for your New Year instead of "resolutions" or "goals".  With that in mind, set these new target activities in your life as themes to focus on and not some end-all place to reach.  Especially when it comes to tasks like dieting, where it's the lifestyle that is to change on a regualr basis and not just a number that is to be reached.

If your goal is to spend less money.  Try outlining that goal with this three-part plan.  One, keep it simple.  Don't try to stop your daily latte', plus cut your grocery bill in half, plus cut out your Amazon shopping, and have your cable disconnected all at once.  Start with something small that helps you learn to discontinue one thing consistently.  If that item is within a reasonable level of expectation and you know you can do it, then try the easier task first.  If, say, you just focus on cutting out the daily latte' and have a pretty good idea that that first goal is reachable, and that you can easily reach that expectation of yourself, then let that be enough at first.  Being able to show yourself you can cut that item out over time leads to an overall feeling of success, which sets you up to try a second item on your financial goals list.

Whatever changes you have decided to tackle for the New Year, make sure they are simple, reachable, and you feel confident you can stay steadily after them until you reach success.

You can see my previous blog entry about ways to stick to your New Years resolution here.

"Motivation is what gets your started, habit is what keeps you going."    ~Jillian Michaels

Thanks to Nan Fry for her great image, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

New Year's Resolution: Make it a Theme

January brings with it a reset point where many people make New Year's resolutions in hopes of making changes in their lives for the year to come.  However, it's no secret that many resolutions are set in January, broken by February, and nowhere to be seen beyond that point.  Like most goals, if we set them too high, or see only the finish line instead of the many steps to achieving them, they are doomed to fail before they begin.

In fact, a New Year's resolution might be the wrong way of looking at setting new goals for the year, and the pressure can come off when we change these goals and resolutions to "themes". 

Setting themes for the year can allow for progress instead of failure as we turn instead to focus more intently on what we want to change in our lives.  Themes help us pay attention to our intention for change and to keep in mind throughout the year what it is that our focus really is. 

Three of the top 10 New Year's resolutions are about health.  That is:  lose weight, exercise more, and quit smoking.  We can set goals to reach a set weight, exercise a certain number of times per week, or cut down to a certain number of smokes by a certain date.  All of which could turn into failure within a matter of days or weeks if we can't hold to it.  Or, we could also set the themes in motion come January 1st, that meal-time focus will have more intention and better food choices, movement will become something we build right into our lives (such as parking farther from entrances and exits, and taking stairs), and finding other things to do besides going for another smoke, even while lugging our cigarettes around, so as to experience what it's like to say no to self-destructive behavior.

Expanding into travel, new hobbies and adventure are also in the top 10 New Year's resolutions, but it's not uncommon to book things at a time when we feel good and not feel much like doing them when that booked event comes around.  We can also try to force ourselves into events and adventures when the money is not always available nor is the time.  But if we think of these ideas more along the lines of themes, we can put out an intention in the new year to look for adventure when it feels like it fits the schedule, budget and energy level.  This can lead only to success instead of failure and by December we will be able to reflect on the year and know we accomplished a lot more than we thought we might.

A resolution has a lot of determination in it, as well as a lot of push and pressure from within.  But a theme has an intention, and intention gives us an aim, like a compass point we try to sail our ship toward throughout the year.  A theme also has a lot less chance for failure because it's not really a goal that we are setting, but a new place to center our focus in everything we do in the coming year. 

For your "New Year's resolution" consider taking some contemplative time to reflect on what themes you'd like to focus your mind on in the upcoming year.  What would you like to pay more attention to?  What will be your top 3 themes for 2023?

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.       ~Lao Tzu

Thanks to Jesper Sehested for the great photo