#keepingresolutions

Tired of making New Year’s resolutions you never keep? Do something different this year and make “Rememberlutions!”

Happy New Year! It's one week into 2008: have you given up on your resolutions yet? Let's talk this month about a few things you can do to make them stick.

First, in how many different areas of your life did you resolve to make changes for 2008? Last month I suggested you think about three values you hold that you hoped to rededicate yourself to, and include in your daily life this year. How many of them became New Year's resolutions? As you start the New Year, choose just one area of change, not a complete makeover (unless of course you have a reality TV show team on your side!).

It takes a fairly long time to institute a new habit. You should plan to spend about three months getting used to a new habit—and making it stick. So if you're taking up healthy eating, or exercising, or a new organizational system, or just finding some time for something that you value, expect it to take a while before it becomes routine. Brushing your teeth every night is probably routine for you, but you know, if you have young kids, it can take a long time for teeth-brushing to become a habit.

And that "three month" guideline applies only to new habits—ones that you are adding. Getting rid of a bad habit can take longer. You certainly can't expect to break a habit overnight—especially if the habit you're trying to break is one of longstanding. And many changes require you to do both: add and subtract a habit. For example, creating healthy eating habits is a positive step, but it is often accompanied by having to end longstanding unhealthy eating habits. Breaking old habits is the hardest task of all.

Anticipate "failure." That may not sound very encouraging, but when you are trying to break a bad habit or institute a good habit, you should expect it to take some practice. You won't get it immediately. Anticipating some failures along the way towards ultimately achieving your goal is, in a sense, a gift. It gives you an opportunity to think about how you might react if (and when!) you do "fail." So, returning to the healthy eating example, it will be helpful to think about what you will do if you find you have eaten a few Oreos. Eating three Oreos means about 160 calories. (I checked the Nabisco website.) There are 45 Oreos in a bag. If your response to eating those three Oreos is, "Forget it, my diet is blown. I'm just going to eat the whole bag," you'll end up eating 2400 calories. That's a lot more than 160. But, if you know in advance that periodically you might blow your new healthy eating habit, you will remember that going a little bit off track will not doom your chances at success. You can remind yourself not to turn one bad choice into a disastrous one. Some failures along the way are not an indication that you will never achieve your goal.

Don't expect perfection. Rather, expect that you'll make some forward progress and some backward steps. When those backward steps come, you'll be able to recognize them as a normal part of moving in the right direction.

If you feel you need some help creating or sticking to your resolutions, please give me a call or e-mail me [email protected] and we can work together to make those resolutions more realistic. You can make the changes you want in 2008.