How Can We Keep Those New Year’s Resolutions?
It’s time to say goodbye to 2015 and for many of us that means yet another attempt to say goodbye to bad habits. Nearly half of us will ring in 2016 by making resolutions to try to improve our lives and to become better versions of ourselves. Heck, even Oprah’s (again) trying to lose weight!
Although 90 percent of us will fail, we still resolve to try every January 1. Why do we do it? Why can’t we stick to the plan? And how can we be more successful in 2016? Read on, we’ve got answers:
There’s an excitement that comes as we near that threshold of hope from one year to the next. We begin the New Year with great plans to declutter our homes, decrease our spending and save more money. With dedication and determination we promise ourselves that this will be the year that we will no longer hide behind beach cover-ups and baggy clothes. We will remove burritos from our budgets and replace them with bikinis. We will vow to do our best and to live life to the fullest. When a new year is on the horizon the views are spectacular, the best is yet to come.
But, despite that breathtaking view, less than 10 percent of us will stick to our resolutions for much longer than a couple of weeks. Our visions of early morning jogs with new friends morph into visions of drive-thrus in our rearview mirrors. We ask ourselves, ‘What happened? Where did all that energy and excitement disappear to so fast?’
According to Dr. Bart Main, a psychiatrist with Cape Cod Healthcare in Hyannis,re-creating ourselves is no simple task.
“It is not so easy to change direction,” he said. “Our momentum seems to carry us along despite ourselves. We have to make great efforts to change the patterns of our lives.”
So is it possible to succeed? Can we lose weight? Save money? Be a better person? Dr. Main says yes – and here are the keys:
— Create very clear, concrete goals and strategies so we can hold ourselves accountable. For example, instead of saying “I’ll do better next time” make a definite plan as to how you will do it. “I’ll arrive five minutes early to the next appointment by leaving 30 minutes before the appointment.”
— Social support is extremely helpful. Partly to validate how difficult change can be but also to confront our resistances. This is why programs like AA and Weight Watchers are successful.
— Put maximum effort into developing the new pattern of behavior very consistently for at least three weeks. This changes the momentum and establishes a new one. Then it is much easier to maintain. It becomes the new norm.
But despite all the good intentions, some of us stay stuck in patterns that we don’t like, Dr. Main said. There may be motives, especially unresolved feelings, underlying some self-destructive patterns that we aren’t even aware of. Some type of brief therapy can often help us identify the source of those patterns, and once aware, they can melt away.
“It doesn’t mean you are crazy,” says Dr. Main, “it means that you are trying to improve on an already pretty good person.”
And that’s not a bad thing to remember as we begin our journey into 2016 – whether or not we succeed in keeping our resolutions, we are still pretty good people just trying to be even better. So to those of you with resolutions, and to those of you without; to those in baggy clothes and those in bikinis…
Happy New Year!
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– By Kristen Levy
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