At the end of every year, we get into this mindset of starting fresh and feeling hopeful, only to be bitterly disappointed by the time March rolls around because we haven’t been able to maintain anything we set our minds to. Why do we do this year after year? Why do we even bother with trying to set new year’s resolutions while trying to convince ourselves that this year is going to be “our year”?
I think we do this because we feel hopeful. It feels fresh, and it feels like we’re getting a fresh start. Almost like we can leave everything behind and start again. Can we really though? Habits are hard to break. Not impossible, but hard. It takes a lot of self-awareness to breed change as well as a lot of consistent, effortful, and purposeful behaviours. When we set resolutions, we often set vague, unrealistic and unattainable expectations for ourselves. We’re all bound to fail to lose that weight, stop drinking so much, find a partner, and feel more gratitude by the time March rolls around. This leaves us feeling like a failure, we feel disappointed, and more often than not we feel depressed.
Why is it so hard to stick to resolutions?
Your habits have been around for a long time. They have deep roots and are embedded in intricate processes. Your behaviour is a complex product of your personality and temperament, your various emotional and physical needs (both in the past and in the moment), your learned experiences, and neurochemical feedback loops that are well beyond your awareness.
When our resolutions are vague, we avoid. When you avoid something that makes you anxious or uncomfortable (e.g., going to the gym for the first time), you immediately are rewarded by a decrease in anxiety. If you face the thing that you’ve been avoiding, you immediately experience an increase in distress. However, if we keep this up, the opposite effect happens in the long run. Long-term avoidance increases overall anxiety significantly over time. To face the things you've been avoiding, you have to tolerate a short-term increase in anxiety. The more you avoid avoidance, you will have relief.
We feel like we are giving up unhelpful behaviours that make us feel better (eating, drinking, smoking). Changing unhelpful pleasurable behaviour is hard. What are you going to do when you feel bad if you can’t do what makes you feel better? How are you going to handle feeling overwhelmed at the end of the day when it makes you want to relax with a drink, or the sense of deprivation that makes eating so satisfying? When we engage in these behaviours, we get rewarded in the short terms because our brain releases Dopamine. Dopamine makes us feel good, but when this wares off we feel guilt and shame, which makes it harder in the long run.
What’s a helpful alternative to setting new year’s resolutions?
When it comes to new year’s resolutions, it’s important to have a year in review. Spend some time and write down all your accomplishments from this year. It’s likely that you’ll be surprised at how much you’ve accomplished in the year. Make sure you write down everything that you can. Go through your camera roll and social media if you have to as a prompt. We don’t always remember the good things. We tend to focus on the negative. Have a think about things you’ve learned, people you’ve met, projects you’ve completed. Be generous and inclusive. New experiences are accomplishments also, so is surviving a failure, or a loss. This will feel uncomfortable so you’ll need to lean into some discomfort while doing this exercise.
Pausing and acknowledging our accomplishments can be challenging. This is because ambitious and perfectionistic people are always focused on the future. The next challenge, the next task, the next project, the next promotion, the next marketing effort, etc. This upward, forward push is highly motivating. But it also deprives you of a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction because you’re always chasing. If you don’t pause to acknowledge accomplishments, you don’t feel filled up and you don’t feel good about yourself. Instead, there’s chronic anxiety, depletion, impatience, and eventually burn out.
How to set goals that will stick:
Resolutions are too broad and vague to be turned into motivated action. For example, “Start a blog” is a resolution, but it isn’t something you can maintain. “Write five blog posts a month” is also not easy to maintain. When will you do it and how? Instead of setting resolutions, it can be useful to set goals that are in line with your values.
The following are examples of setting a goal: “Write down three blog topics to write about this month” or “Schedule 45 minutes three days a week to work on blog posts.” Can you see how specific and measurable these latter examples are compared to “write five blog posts a month”?
To make this habit really stick, make sure it is in line with your values as a person. If your goal is to “write down three blog topics to write about this month and schedule 45 minutes three days this month to write about them”, then writing about topics that matter to you and are in line with your value system will ensure that you actually get it done because you want to. If you’re passionate about it you’ll write about it. Setting specific goals that are in line with your values will ensure longevity and will make maintenance easier when it comes to changing our habits and setting our intentions for the year. If it’s important to us we’ll do it.
Remember that throughout the year you will want to pause and acknowledge your accomplishments so that you don’t burn out. It’s also important to pause between projects, to rest, and to have fun along the way. The more we do these things the better we’ll get at lasting the distance.
Establishing habits and setting goals for the year can be challenging. If you’re after support to help explore your values so you can then use them as a guide to set goals for yourself, we’re here to help. Give our team a call on (03) 9882 8874 to book an appointment.
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This blog was written and prepared by Dr Celin Gelgec – Clinic Director and Clinical Psychologist at Melbourne Wellbeing Group.