Setting Achievable New Year Resolutions

Guest post from Mystie Winckler

 

I’ve made resolutions for the new year for 3 or 4 years running now, but with pretty poor results, even when I committed to them publicly and shared how things were going in June and in December. In years past, I have tried to choose projects or tasks that can be checked off and accomplished during the year, rather than vague “resolutions,” but there always seems to be one or two that are really more aspirations more than projects.

Sometimes an aspiration really is what is important to focus on, rather than the checkboxes and completed projects. Lately, I’ve seen people around the Internet choose a theme word for their year that captures the direction they want to head or the virtue they want to acquire or the attitude they want to cultivate. I think that’s a great idea. But achieving an aspiration is best done by baby steps and habits rather than a big life overhaul. It is more effective in the long run to make little but vital changes and actually have them stick.

A Habit-Building Project to Reach Your Goals

Goal – the result or achievement toward which effort is directed.

Clearly state the goal you want to work toward.

Project – a large or major undertaking, especially one involving considerable money, personnel, and equipment.

Rather than money, personnel, and equipment, many of our life goals actually require considerable attention, stamina, and self-discipline. I’m not sure if that’s good news or not.

Habit – an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.

Almost involuntary. Automatic. Willpower will fatigue you, but habits just happen. To just get out of bed without thinking about it instead of debating and arguing internally begins as willpower, but over time grows into a habit. It is habits that we want when we have a lifestyle aspiration.

Whether habits are planned and created conscientiously, or allowed to be haphazardly filled in by chance, they are habits all the same. Habit rules ninety-nine percent of everything we do. – Charlotte Mason

Truths about Habits

A Habit is a Practice

And practice makes perfect. Practice means you’re working toward becoming good at this thing. It means you don’t expect yourself to get it right the first time or every time. Deliberate practice is work, but it bestows excellence after consistent, persistent application.

And deliberate practice grows our own capacity, as well.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier — not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability to do it has increased. — Emerson

Creating a Habit Requires Effort

Everything is difficult before it is easy. — Goethe

It takes time and attention and effort to wear a groove down into the path you want to follow. The longer you wear that same groove down, the easier it is to stay in it and not wander off.

It takes a few weeks of work to build a new habit. Once the habit is in place, it must be guarded diligently to prevent a reversion to the old ways, but keeping watch is not stressful or difficult once the new habit is secure. — Charlotte Mason

Here are two practices to make building a habit easier:

Tie Your Habit to Something Secure

Attach your new habits to a trigger. You already have habits. Hook your new habits to current habits to help you remember them and to help them become your default more readily and smoothly. Don’t try to completely remake your life from scratch. Rather, add few small changes to your current routine. Drink a glass of water before each meal (the meal is the trigger to drink water); sort your mail as soon as you bring it in (getting the mail is the trigger to dealing with it); take your vitamins when you give your children theirs (getting out the vitamins triggers your own vitamin reminder); check your calendar and to do list while you eat breakfast (eating breakfast is the trigger to look over your day). Whatever new habit you want to establish, pin it to something that already happens routinely every day.

Don’t Exhaust Yourself

Forging new habits requires willpower, and willpower works like a muscle. It is exhausting to exercise and needs rest after exertion. It will give out if you attempt to overwork it (by taking on too many changes at once). But, it will also grow in capacity as you exercise it. Making positive changes is something that will become easier with practice, even if it wears you out at first. You might start with small baby step changes to begin with (like walking around the block), but if you persist and stretch yourself consistently, before you know it you’ll be able to tackle big and momentous changes (like running a 5K). Don’t lose heart and be discouraged in the day of small beginnings.

Take it 1-3 habits at a time, for 4-6 weeks. Focus on a small number of small habit changes for a full 4-6 weeks. You will be more likely to integrate them into your life if you persist and focus with a laser focus, not a scattershot approach. Decision-making is fatiguing, and making the effort of choosing your new habit is more likely to happen if you keep the number of decisions and choices you’re working on small and few. The small and few will add up, and your skill at focusing and integrating habits will grow with practice.

We are what we repeatedly do. — Aristotle