What makes resolutions work?

Psychologist Rachel Ward Lilley tells us what she has learned when it comes to New Year's resolutions.

So, how did your dry January go? Did you find it hard to refuse a drink when those around you were lapping it up? Did your resolution crumble on that Friday evening, after a tough working week? Or did you sail through your self-imposed challenge without faltering?

Now that we are well into February, it could be useful to take stock of where we’re up to with those resolutions we made, publicly or privately. There’s no use setting targets without measuring results, as they say. So, how did you do? Ten out of ten? Gold star and tick? Or was it more a case of good intentions slipping through the cracks in your resolve? Whatever the results, it’s a good time to remind ourselves that we are just human, after all and there are many reasons why we fall off the wagon. I’ve had more than a few failures over the years and here are some things I learned from them. Let’s be kind to ourselves and consider some of them.

Sometimes, we make the mistake of setting too rigid a goal. “All or nothing” is a pretty unforgiving maxim and it may be neither necessary nor appropriate for our purposes. If you’ve vowed to have a ‘dry January’ and are invited to a birthday party, where you refuse the offer of a drink, the situation presents challenges you may not have intended. You look like a spoilsport, and it becomes about you, not the host. How about introducing flexibility into your regime by making exceptions for social events? You’ve made your point to yourself and don’t need to hammer it home publicly. In another example, you may have decided to make a habit of walking to the supermarket instead of driving, but you would probably be relaxed about making an exception when you have an exceptionally heavy or bulky purchase to haul home.

Then there is the inappropriate resolution, the one that is likely to fail because the goal is misplaced. Losing weight for the wrong reason is a classic: some of us will never be the shape of the model we aspire to – we have to work with what nature gave us – so when reducing the waistline is just an exercise in vanity, it becomes laborious and may be doomed to failure because the struggle is futile. However, the real benefits of losing weight are beyond vanity – improvements in physical and mental health – and are not only attainable but also very tangible, which means they are effective drivers of resolve. When results are forthcoming – feeling better, sleeping better and thinking better – our resolution gets a boost. After all, it’s not just waistlines we should be measuring, it’s our overall wellbeing that we need to keep track of.

Finally, when it comes to choosing a resolution, it’s worth taking our individual temperament into account. If, for example, you decide to take up treadmill running every Wednesday evening, but you find it boring, you could add a social aspect to it by recruiting a friend to come along. Or you might just seek an alternative activity, one that is essentially sociable, such as a team sport. And the same applies to non-physical activities. If you’ve made your mind up to catch up on all those books you meant to read, it’s a good idea to join a book club or, better still, start one of your own. That way, you have an inbuilt incentive to get the job done and the bonus of an enhanced social life.

Resolution can be a cold and gloomy place – a bit like winter can be – so, take a look at ways to make it realistic, relevant and rewarding. Don’t set yourself up to fail!

Rachel Ward Lilley is a business and educational psychologist. She has worked for many years advising SMEs and her current work relates to issues of resilience, communication, personal development, team building and motivation. Over the past 12 years Rachel has extended her work into the educational field.  Find out more here.