New beginnings, be that a birthday or a new year tend to motivate aspirational behavior. As 2022 draws to a close, around 40% of Americans still make New Years resolutions, although only 10% feel they are successful in keeping them.
For 2022, the most popular resolutions were living healthier, personal improvement and happiness, and losing weight. Typical reasons for failure included having unrealistic goals, not keeping track of progress, and having made too many resolutions at once.
So, how can we keep the aspirational promises we make to ourselves?
On the more scientific end, solutions suggest that we can best adapt to change when it is broken down to smaller bits. Eliminating smoking, drinking, fried food, dessert, and going to the gym every day all at once is not a digestible objective, unless the starting point is very close to the final goal. When our plans are too extreme, they may also be motivated by negative feelings like shame, fear and anxiety.
To help our resolutions evolve with us, perhaps we should shift our mindset as well as the ground rules. Instead of recycling overly abstract concepts that drastically alter our lifestyle, we should first make sure that what stands behind these resolutions is genuine desire for growth, while still maintaining a sense of respect and compassion for who we are today. Trying to shame ourselves into change rarely produces results.
We can create new resolutions on any given day of the year as any time is right for goal-setting. However, if something comes to mind in the near future, using the New Year as an incentive is especially fitting.
Koning wishes you a healthy, promising 2023!