Want the change. Be the change. Smell like the change?
Being two days into the New Year might have already deprived some of us of our New Year resolutions. And, of course, that’s not very good for the morale. Therefore, let’s jump right into how to make your New Year’s resolutions stick.
There are many reasons as to why you generally fail your New Year resolutions. Too many to count here, actually. However, the most important reason for failing to achieve your resolutions is because you’re not really that into them.
In fact, you’re not actually trying to change something about your current situation; you’re just following a tradition that has been going on for years now, without actually being efficient.
What needs to happen in order for you to focus on your new year’s resolutions and to finally get something done is for you to want the change. And don’t start with ‘But I *do* want to change’, because if you did, you would have managed it a while ago, without having to resort to the new year.
In order to actually accomplish your New Year resolutions, you will have to convince yourself that you want the change.
Think about it, what don’t you like about your life right now? Think really hard. Do you really want to quit smoking because that’s what you want, or is it because you think you’d feel better?
Until you can honestly say that you’d be better off with the change as part of your life, you’re probably going to fail your resolutions, new year or not.
That’s because you don’t need a special occasion to change something in your life. If that thing is important to you, you will start effecting that change as soon as possible. This is psychotherapy 101. If you want change, you have to pursue it.
But you do have to want it.
Of course, there are other factors as to why you just simply can’t seem to keep those pesky resolutions. And I’m going to talk about some of them for a bit.
One of those factors would be your friends. We, as a species, are social creatures. We need other individuals to support us, as well as to challenge us.
Implicate your friends. Either ask them, if you’re going to… let’s say a party, to refrain from smoking, or drinking, or eating unhealthy things around you. Tell them that you’re trying to make a change, and you need their support.
Or you can just go the other way, and ask them to flick your ear if they catch you doing any of the aforementioned things.
Another factor would be circumstances. And those are beyond your control. But what isn’t beyond your control is – you guessed it – your own actions. If something happens that would make you go back to one of your old habits, just think about how much you wanted the change, and the urge should go away.
And that’s how to make your New Year’s resolutions stick. At least that’s how therapists have been doing it for decades.
And one last thing, in the words of the unforgettable Mike Ehrmantraut – “No half measures.”
You’re all in. Either you do it, or you don’t.
Image source: Wikimedia
