Lessons for Living
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How are you coming with your New Year's resolutions?
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Each year millions
of people make annual commitments to change their lifestyles. Year after year the top
three resolutions remain the same: To lose weight, quit smoking, and exercise more. While sixty percent of people making these resolutions drop them by the end of six months, the good news about making any resolution at all is that if you do so, you will be 10 times more likely to successfully change than someone who makes no New Year's resolution. However, maintaining a resolution is hard work. Psychological research has found that at the end of two years only 19 percent of people resolving to change on a New Year's Eve will still be sticking to their goal. The important aspects about a resolution and what makes one likely to succeed is that it reflects a sincere readiness to change, a thoughtful consideration of how to handle setbacks, and a deeply felt sense of personal self-efficacy. These features lay the groundwork for action. Basically, this means that to be successful, a resolution cannot be a spur of the moment whim. There must be a deeply felt motivation to change as evidenced in advanced planning. If you want to lose weight, you must know what diet you will follow. To succeed at exercise, you need exercise time built into your schedule. It is also vitally important to know how to handle setbacks because they will occur. Just accept the fact that you will give in to temptation and break your diet or skip an exercise day. At such times your attitude will be critical to your success. You must program yourself to avoid using a temporary setback as an excuse to tell yourself, "I can't do it." Instead be prepared to analyze what put you at risk. Perhaps you went grocery shopping while hungry or slept through your morning alarm and had no time left to exercise. Appropriate responsive planning can help you avoid similar risky situations and get back on track. Ultimately it is self-efficacy that is the key to a successful resolution. Self-efficacy is a belief and trust in yourself to accomplish what you set out to do. You can enhance belief in yourself with the use of affirmations. An affirmation is a positive statement and a declaration of things to be true. Affirmations are created by optimistically stating what you want to happen as a present reality. For example, "My healthy lifestyle empowers me to change." An affirmation's power comes from repetition, so repeat the ones you choose many times a day. If after reading these comments, you are feeling ill prepared for success with your resolutions, it is not too late to reassess your goals. First, make sure that you are committed to change in the area you have chosen, and, if not, then choose another. Second, carefully prepare a program for change with appropriate plans for handling setbacks. Third, affirm your personal ability to make change, and, finally, take action. Give us your feedback on this article or |
