Suggestions for the upcoming New Year. 2k4.
Very soon we will arrive at that time of year when people tend to make New Year’s resolutions. The following suggestions for making resolutions that work appeared in a recent article by Martha Beck Ph.D. According to Dr. Beck, the goal is to avoid making resolutions that create anxiety, rigidity, and failure. She makes the following recommendations to help you define, articulate, and keep pledges that will add value to your life:
Think quality not quantity. If you really want your resolutions to stick keep them to a minimum. Think about a goal that is meaningful to you rather than simply trying to motivate yourself to do things you dislike. A good resolution is a promise that you will spend the time and energy to get something you really want. A bad resolution feels like a burden; a good resolution feels like a gift.
Think means not ends. Effective resolutions don’t just state what you want; they spell out how to do it. A sure formula for failure is to state your goal only in terms of the result you wish to achieve. Your subconscious mind works like a computer - name your ideals and it just sits there; give it instructions and it gets to work. You give yourself much better odds of achieving your goals if you state them in terms of means rather than ends.
Be flexible and pace yourself. One common resolution-setting error is the all or nothing approach. You can avoid this by giving yourself a range of behaviors that fulfill your resolution requirements: a minimum and maximum effort that you must make during a given time period. You may be surprised to find that simply doing the minimum makes it easy to do a little more and a little more, and that eventually this will take you most of the way to your goal. More is not necessarily better. As a regular practice it can be incredibly counterproductive - it can sometimes mean pushing yourself to total exhaustion, at which point you are tempted to give up entirely. You will achieve your goals much more quickly if you stop every work session with a little fuel still left in the tank.
Link effort to reward. When a pleasant event consistently follows any action, we’re likely to repeat the action. You literally can train yourself to meet your daily minimum resolution requirement by rewarding your positive behavior – quickly and consistently – with something that pleases you. The reward should only be available when you have completed the desired activity. In this way, you can actually turn something that you dislike into something that you genuinely enjoy.
Use the buddy system. Moving a goal into action requires planning and conceptualization. Talking through your desires and sharing your ideas with a friend can be the best step in putting this goal into action. Be sure to choose a person you find comforting and supportive – someone who will encourage you to follow it through. You never know, you may spark them to consider making some changes as well.
The above suggestions can help you to make resolutions that become permanently woven into the patterns of your daily life. This is because they encourage you to become your best self, rather than pressure you to meet unrealistic demands. Goals which allow for creativity, individuality, humor and the inevitable frailty of the human condition are the only ones that work in this world.