Words of inspiration from Dawlish-based psychotherapist and life coach Jody Merelle.
Have you made a new year’s resolution?
Are you one of the estimated 12% of people who has made a resolution for the new year over the last week? Or perhaps you are one of the 5% who planned to make one back in December but then abandoned any ideas of resolutions once the new year approached. Maybe you just can’t be bothered with any of it.
According to a recent survey by YouGov, of the people who started off the year in 2020 making resolutions, 23% kept none of them and only 25% claimed to have kept all the resolutions they made. Another survey estimates that over 80% of those who make resolutions will have given them up by the second week of February, with the day pinpointed as the official ‘Quitter’s Day’ being less than three weeks into the year on January 19 (research by Strava).
The vast majority of the resolutions people make are connected to health and fitness. The most frequent ones are increase exercise, lose weight, improve diets and reduce alcohol intake. People also commonly resolve to spend less time on social media, take up new hobbies and spend more time with the family.
While these are all worthwhile goals, there are challenges involved. We all know that for goals to be meaningful they benefit from being specific. Saying that you want to ‘spend more time with the family’ or ‘eat better’ remain rather woolly concepts. So in a bid to be specific, you might think it is better to say something like ‘I will only spend an hour a day on social media’ or ‘I will drink two litres of water every day’. The problem with this, is that once we become this specific with a new year’s resolution we have immediately set ourselves up for failure. When thinking about your resolution and looking back to the 1st January, you have either kept your promise or you haven’t. This means that as soon as you have the slightest slip, your promise is broken. This can then feel as though your whole resolution is now out of the window, leading many people to give up on an otherwise positive course of action entirely.
One helpful way I have found in terms of encouraging positive change is to spend the beginning of the year imagining that you are at the end of it. Rather than having any kind of strict timetable, or a list of what must be achieved (especially given all the uncertainties that covid has caused) I take a note of things that I would like the coming year to include. Things I would be happy to look back on at the end of 2022. This might include places that would be nice to visit with the family, books I would like to read or people I would like to spend time with. I write this list in my appointments diary at the beginning of the year and then regularly refer to it to see how I am getting on. It often serves to jog my memory about what and who are really important to me and how I could perhaps better be prioritising my time.
This way I am not setting myself to ‘fail’ by making a promise I might not be able to keep, but I am instead giving myself twelve months to try and accomplish certain things which are in line with my own set of priorities.
One exception to the timetabling rule this year however, is the sending of Christmas cards. This morning I have had three thank you messages for Christmas cards that have only arrived this morning despite being sent well before Christmas. Better late than never I guess – but this year I will send them in November to make absolutely sure they arrive on time!
However you feel about the arrival of the new year – may I take this opportunity to wish you a healthy and peaceful 2022. I hope that it will be a better and more positive year for all of us.