Change
If this sounds like an excuse to drop your New Years Resolutions, you are partially right.
At a New Years Eve dinner this year guests were pressed to share their resolutions, prompting a slew of sarcastic, witty, serious and baffled responses. Many felt compelled to have SOMETHING, and no one wanted to be held accountable for sticking to their resolutions. Why then do we feel the date calendar will facilitate behavior change? And if we fail it must be that we are weak, lazy or quitters.
Lasting change takes time.
The first step is knowing what needs to change, or ‘shift’ in our lives. The New Year is a nice time to reassess, if post-holiday gluttony, spending and exhaustion prompts reflection. To form new neural pathways and rewire our habits, we must work through the resistance humans have to change ingrained ways of behaving. Commitment, patience, overcoming challenges and consistent effort does not start on January 1st and it is not sustainable. It takes about seventy days for a new habit to form, depending on how complex it is, and it’s not based on a single declaration to ‘change.’
Our brains are built to help us survive, we prefer the safety of the familiar and the routine, so something new feels ‘foreign’ even if it’s better for us. For change that lasts, there is an emotional shift that must happen, and taking on the role of this new version of ourselves should not be underestimated. The New Year is an excellent time to check in, review or create goals, and not label anything as ‘failures’ if behaviors do not automatically flip.
Most resolutions are vague, unrealistic, too abrupt or overwhelming, and the motivation to change gets lost in feeling pressure to stick to them. The key is picking a few small habits to change that are specific and to consistently aim for adjusting. One small change will lead to other positive changes in your habits, and setbacks are a normal part of the process. Anything we have learned as humans did not happen because a date dictated that change. It happens after many attempts, failures and wins. The idea of what you want to change must include the person you will be, I am a runner is more powerful than I will run more. Make sure your goals are fun and not punishing, and that your efforts will last all year long, where you can reflect on your progress next year.
Happy New Year!