Cheers to a new year!! I have come to love the unspoken January holiday of focusing on fresh starts, wellness, health, good habits, and overall self care. I actually love walking into stores and seeing the stacks of yoga mats and vitamins. We are all a bit more hopeful on January 1st. Here are a few fun tips to initiating and sustaining those changes in 2024…
It turns out there is science to support making a life change in conjunction with a significant calendar change – the first day of the year, the week, the season, or a landmark date that has significance for you (birthday, anniversary etc). This is called the “fresh start effect.” In the following study, (Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., & Riis, J. (2015). Put Your Imperfections Behind You: Temporal Landmarks Spur Goal Initiation When They Signal New Beginnings. Psychological Science, 26(12), 1927-1936. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615605818) the authors "demonstrated that temporal landmarks strongly associated with the beginning of a new period cause people (a) to engage in activities designed to facilitate goal initiation and (b) to predict that their own and other people’s motivation to tackle goals will be higher." Additionally, "we have shown that temporal landmarks marking new beginnings inspired goal initiation, in part by creating a psychological disconnect between a person’s current self and his or her past inferior self." Leave your imperfect past self behind and embrace the new better version of yourself.
Your New Year’s resolutions do not have to be a yearlong commitment. In fact, for all strategies and goals it is best to regularly reassess and shift gears as needed. No team goes into their playing season with one goal or resolution without continuously reassessing and adjusting after each practice or game. I’d recommend reassessing your goals monthly or every couple weeks. See what is working, and what obstacles need more study.
Recognize that you WILL fail. Include this in your resolutions and goals. Make a strategy for the failures. Write this out. For example “when failure inevitably occurs on my journey to (stated goal), I will….” Do not quit when you fail. That is part of the deal. Readjust and keep moving.
No lasting change can be made my only focusing on the desired results and the actions needed to get there. You must also, and most importantly, focus on the thought patterns and feelings that drive your actions. Remember, circumstances occur in our lives. We have thoughts about these circumstances. Those thoughts lead to feelings in our bodies. These thoughts and feelings drive our actions. A collection of actions leads to an overall result in our lives. By really examining and re-engineering our thoughts and feelings, our actions/habits more easily shift. Study your current thought patterns and patterns of behavior from an objective distance. Ask yourself “why am I really doing this? What is this current behavior giving me, or what has it given me in the past that is no longer beneficial?”
Consistency and compounding is way better than perfection and high intensity. It is tempting when setting new goals and intentions to go hard at the beginning and expect from yourself total adherence to the plan. This is not sustainable. As soon as you have a day where you are feeling sick, fatigued, or something inevitable gets in the way, you will be tempted to throw in the towel. Instead, focus on the long game and on making small steady progressive changes. Small changes lead overtime to excellent results. Reassess your goals regularly in order to appreciate and document your incremental progress.
So take full advantage of the fresh start effect! Sit today and make those resolutions and set big goals for yourself. Honor your wishes and dreams. There is science to support starting TODAY. Then start small, expect failure, and regularly reassess and adjust. Document your progress. Slowly, quietly, steadily change your life. Then celebrate loudly. Happy New Year!
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