This past summer,
Céline Doré found herself on a long-awaited
holiday in Paris with her
husband. As they took a late-night boat
tour down the Seine, gazing at the city,
which was lit up magically, and at the Parisians
eating, drinking and dancing along
the riverbank, Céline felt an emotion that
she’d come to experience many times that
year: satisfaction.
“I was just so proud of myself. I’d been
talking about going to Europe for so long,
and there I was. I’d done it,” says the 31-year-old
technology consultant from her Toronto
home.
Céline’s European adventure was one
of three New Year’s resolutions she’d made
last January. The other two? Run a marathon
and get out of debt. Amazingly, by
mid-year she was able to cross them off her
list too. Within five months, she’d pounded
pavement at the Mississauga, Ont., marathon
and paid off wedding bills and expensive
home-reno tabs, and even some old
school loans . Not exactly chump change.
And not exactly easy, either. Not only was
she running for hours on snow-covered
streets in the cold, but Céline also put her
household on a strict financial budget.
Still, Céline says her resolutions would
have been nearly impossible to keep if it
hadn’t been for a New Year’s goal-setting
group she’d formed with two of her best
friends in January. Once a month, the three
women would meet for dinner, discuss
their recent accomplishments and brainstorm
ways to sidestep failure. And everyone
got a kick in the pants when they
needed it.
“I got slack about budgeting after a while,
but my group put things in perspective and
said, ‘This year is the year you wanted to
finish it,’” Céline says of her debt-reduction
goal. “They helped me remember what was
important.”
It’s hearing success stories like Céline’s
that makes so many of us—nearly 50 percent,
according to some sources—make
New Year’s resolutions each year. Writing
down goals, we hope, fingers crossed, will
make us skinnier, more organized or smug
non-smokers. Even in the face of downright
depressing statistics—one oft-quoted
study showed that 22 percent of resolvers
fail after only one week and 81 percent are
back to their old ways within two years—we
try and try again.
Yet that’s not necessarily a bad thing,
says Richard Koestner, a professor at
McGill University in Montreal who specializes
in motivation and goal setting. He
sets a few New Year’s resolutions himself
each January—and cops to the fact that
most of them aren’t met. The point, he says,
is that if we try often enough and learn from
our mistakes, someday we’ll be crossing
that proverbial marathon finish line, too.“The research suggests it can take seven
or eight attempts before someone succeeds
at their goal, so it’s common for people to make the same resolution year after
year,” he says.
That’s right: seven or eight times. As in
seven or eight years of wheeling out the
same old popular resolutions like losing
weight, exercising or changing jobs.
No wonder many of us throw in the
towel so soon. Forget the mythical 21
days people talk about when discussing
how long it takes to form new habits.
A paper recently published in the European
Journal of Social Psychology
busted that myth when it revealed results
from a preliminary study showing
it took between 18 and 254 days before
an action became automatic. The average
was 66 days.
So should we even bother making
resolutions? Absolutely, says Koestner,
who ditched his two-hour-a-day TV-viewing
habit, makes his lunches and
drinks plenty of water. All are changes
from resolutions made over the years.
Success is just a matter of understanding
what it actually takes to break (or
make) a habit—and knowing the right
ways to go about the task.
Set achievable goals. Research tells us that resolution makers
often fail because of unrealistic expectations.
We want results tomorrow, and
they’ve got to be big. We expect the process
to be easy and our lives to change dramatically
if we actually meet our goals.
Although our society supports the idea
of transformative, yet easy-peasy, sudden
metamorphosis, that’s not how self-change
actually works, says Edward
Phillips, director of the Institute of Lifestyle
Medicine at Harvard Medical
School in Boston.
“People are looking for something that
is too quick. If you told your girlfriend
that you wanted to grow your hair long,
you wouldn’t expect it to happen overnight,
and you’d be okay with that because
that’s the way change happens,” he says.
Remember to be patient—and realize
that your goal is going to be hard work.
Choose something that you believe in.
Ann Male, a 46-year-old mom of two
from Port Credit, Ont., knows all about making resolutions that go nowhere. Before
she became a busy mother, she made the
typical weight-loss and money-saving
resolutions. None of them stuck longer
than a couple of months, though, and after
a while she just gave up.
“I think it’s good to have goals and keep
refreshing your life, but when it starts to
put negative pressure on you, that’s not very
healthy,” she says now.
Once her kids got older, Ann decided to
give resolutions a go again, but this time
she’d start them in September and choose
only goals that would feed her soul. She
took art classes and is now jotting down
short stories in a creative-writing group.
In short, she’s setting herself up for fun,
not failure.
It’s little wonder that Ann’s new resolutions
are working for her, says Koestner.
Many of us choose New Year’s resolutions
to address our guilt or to meet other people’s
expectations.
“But if you select a goal that’s really connected
to who you truly are—your interests
and important personal values—you’re
much more likely to succeed,” he says.
Before making any kind of resolution,
take some time to think about what you
really want out of life. Is it smaller thighs,
or lasting friendships? Only you can decide
what actually makes you happy.
Put your plan on autopilot.
Here’s another reason Ann’s resolutions
are working: She’s found ways to make
sticking to her pledges easy, says Koestner.
By attending classes, she doesn’t have to
remind herself to dig out a pen and paper
or her watercolour set.
“Once you decide on your goal, you have
to work on a simple plan to make it easier
for you,” he says. Koestner refers to a woman who found
a way to stay fit all year: She set her gym
gear by the door each night so she could
just grab it and go in the morning. Meanwhile,
a hard-core computer-agenda user
blocked off two hours every few days to hit
the treadmill. She made those appointments
because she already considered her
agenda sacred.
Plans are incredibly important, simply
because all of us need help in the willpower
department, he maintains. In short,
we have little self-control. After we’ve
spent a whole day keeping it together in
front of our colleagues and in line at the
grocery store, our levels of self-control
become depleted. We wake up at 7 a.m.
feeling as if we can conquer the world, but
pushing ourselves to refrain from raiding
the refrigerator after the kids go to bed?
Forget it. The resolve is long gone.
But here’s the good news: An implementation
plan can help you find ways to face
the fridge most nights of the week, with
little willpower required.
Try the buddy system.
Sometimes all it takes is a good pal to keep
us motivated. That’s what Katrina Carroll-
Foster, 37, from Vancouver discovered
when she made the resolution to start her
own business with her best friend, Tracey
Solomon, 39, in New York. For years they’d
been talking about ditching their marketing
jobs and joining entrepreneurial forces,
and finally the time felt right.
In less than a year, they’ve quit their jobs,
built a business plan and incorporated the
business. Now they are in serious talks
with investors and are about to launch their
online women’s-apparel shopping site,
Hoseanna. They needed each other to stay
focused on all the little tasks.
“I’ve learned that simply talking about
a goal or writing it down is really hollow,”
Katrina says. “You need someone to hold
you accountable.”
Getting support works better for women
than for men, according to a U.K. study.
Men succeed at meeting goals when they
break them down into bite-sized pieces.
Women do better when they tell other
people about their resolutions or are encouraged
not to give up.
After nailing three
New Year’s resolutions in one year with the
help of her goal-setting group, Céline is not
at all surprised that teamwork helps.
“When you have other people rooting
for you, you start to think, ‘Oh, they believe
in me—maybe I should too,’” she says.
It’s time you believed in yourself too. So
this year grab some friends, dream up a
couple of heartfelt resolutions and build
yourself a plan. Achievement is all about
taking small steps to reach big goals. And
if after all that guidance your New Year’s
resolutions still flop?
Chin up! There’s always next year.
Start your own New Year's resolutions group with these six tips!
1. Grab friends who are committed to the cause. Keep the group small so scheduling conflicts don't pop up.
2. Set aside a couple of hours every month to meet. To keep it simple and virtually automatic, choose the same day and time.
3. Come up with two or three resolutions each and write them down.
4. Brainstorm small steps and stages to meet your bigger goals.
5. At meetings, discuss your recent successes and the times your plans fell apart. Brainstorm ways to overcome obstacles next time.
6. Don't accidentally weaken your friends' resolve. Have a pal trying to
save money? Make meetings
a BYOB and potluck affair.
Best friend trying to shed her
tummy rolls in 2011? Serve
low-cal drinks and nibblies,
or have walking meetings.
For more resolutions tips, check out this article.