Happy New Year! We all say it, we all mean it, we all want it. And most of us put pressure on ourselves to make it happen on DAY 1! And we don't quite make it, probably because we are a little tired from the festive season and the late night the night before, so we roll those good intentions on to Day 2... but that still feels like a holiday right? Many of us haven't even returned to work yet and so, we'll start tomorrow. Right? Right? But tomorrow for many of us is the first day back at work and well, that can be rough and extremely tiring and so we should go easy on ourselves. So why not give ourselves a couple days to ease back into reality and then we will go full pelt at our new years resolutions. Right? Except, then you are already a week in and you haven't done anything different and maybe you're not cut out for the changes you want to make and so why start now?
#Newyearsresolutions bring with them pressure to move from being our fine old selves to being perfect. And the fight to be perfect brings its own pressures, because, when is anyone or anything perfect? Once we reach perfect, we move the goalposts so the journey continues. That good old hedonic treadmill! Studies have shown that 9% of people, (yes, I said 9%) will keep their New Year's Resolutions and see them through until succession. Good for them! But what about the 91% of people, the majority quitting before the end of January? It's clearly not working for most of us, so I say, stuff it!
I invite you to stop looking at what you want to achieve this year, and instead look at the habits you already engage in that you would like to change. Because we can walk into any new year with good intentions, but the problem is we probably have some habits that are going to sabotage them. And here's the thing about habits, once there, they are there for good. That wiring is set in our brains and cannot be unwired. But we can work to break it and replace it. We just need to rewire a new habit on top of the old one. I know... I made that sound easy, but it's not. Change takes work, even if it's a positive change. The habits we have already formed are there so we don't have to think, they save us time, energy and brain power. Replacing these habits will take time, energy and brain power so our brains will fight against it. To make it a little easier, think about your existing habits and look at what you can change or tweak to make them better, for example, if you automatically reach for the salt without tasting your food, can you switch that to some chilli flakes? Can the space where the bottle of wine sits in your fridge be replaced with a nice non-alcoholic sparkling drink?
Give yourself cues and visual reminders - running shoes by the front door, for example. My yoga mat is permanently rolled out on my floor for the month of January to help me carry out the 30 Days of Yoga challenge I signed up for. Every time I see it, I think "I must do today's class" and, as it is lying in between my sofa and tv, it can't be ignored and I know I'll be less likely to watch tv for the whole evening and ignore that mat lying in front of me.
There's something called a habit loop, which consists of a cue, a routine and a reward. This could be the clock striking 10am (cue), you walk to the coffee machine (routine), you grab a biscuit on your way back to your desk (reward). The cue isn't going anywhere, so can you replace the routine, and therefore the reward? When you are trying to form these new habits, go easy on yourself, it takes time and it's not always comfortable. Some say it takes 21 days to form a new habit, others say 66 days. I believe it's down to the person, it may happen sooner, it may take a lot longer. But it can be done, so whatever you do, don't believe you can't do it. Because you can.
If you would like support identifying habits and behaviours that you want to change and help to put these changes into action, go to the Contact sections of my site and we can arrange a call to discuss how coaching benefits habit and behaviour change as well as getting you closer to your big, exciting 2023 goals!
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