Why New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work Very Often
It's mid-January, do you know where your New Year's Resolutions are?
Big Plans for the New Year
You got ready for the new year by making big plans swearing you were going to lose weight and make this your year. Yet just a couple of weeks in if you're reading this, there's a pretty good chance that you've already thrown in the towel. So why is it that New Year's Resolutions often seem not to work? And, more importantly, what can we do about it?
There's something about the prospect of a new year and starting with a clean slate that makes it hard to resist making a New Year's Resolution and vowing you're going to turn over a new leaf. And it's not necessarily a bad thing to stop and take a good hard look at where you are with your healthy habits and weight loss at a logical point and promise to do better.
But when you make a resolution to...
Lose 40 pounds
Go to the gym
Never eat french fries or chocolate ever again
You're pretty much setting yourself up for failure.
Why? Because first of all, your goals are not SMART goals
No, I'm not trying to rank you out by saying you're not smart. For a goal to have a strong chance of being successful, it has to include the following factors covered by the acronym SMART. Let's look at the "lose 40 pounds" goal:
Specific–just how are you going to lose 40 pounds (what are the steps and what’s your plan)?
Measurable–how will you measure this (many would say a scale, but how often and when will you weigh yourself or will you use other measures of success entirely)?
Attainable–is this something that's doable for you?
Realistic–do you really need to lose 40 pounds? (maybe you need to lose more or less than that?
Time-Bound–when are you going to lose the weight (are you trying to do it in a month, 6 months, 2 years)?
So a better goal would be to say:
"I want to lose 50 pounds over the course of this year, by losing an average of a pound a week, weighing myself every Monday morning, cutting 250 calories a day and burning an extra 250 calories a day."
Reason #2 why New Year’s Resolutions don’t work very often is exactly because of item #1 of a SMART goal—there’s no specific plan associated with them.
How do you succeed with losing 40 pounds if you don't have the foggiest idea of how you're going to achieve it? Even the goal above that has the SMART goal factors in it still assumes you know how to cut 250 calories from your daily consumption and burn an extra 250 in ways that are healthy and suit you that you can live with.
You haven't been doing it, so what's your realistic plan for making that happen?
The New Year’s Resolution Takeaway
Don't go blaming your New Year's Resolutions when they slip away. Look to yourself and say "okay I said I was going to improve myself with these general steps, now how can I really create a specific plan that I feel I can follow through with to make it happen?" Just because you started off too general and perhaps too grandiose doesn't mean that you're doomed to fail if you're willing to take a step back and get more concrete about it.
Don't go off trying to succeed with a New Year's Resolution without a solid game plan, and if you did, as long as there's still time on the clock, you can change your strategy and win the game (you can tell I've been watching the NFL Playoffs).
It's not that New Year's Resolutions don't work, it's that we don't give them enough real thought and planning to give them the chance they deserve. But now you know how to fix that.
P.S. If you’d like additional tips on being as successful with your weight and overall health as you are in your business or career, please sign up for my free “5 Essential Keys to Healthy Weight Loss E-Course.”
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