How to keep your New Year's Resolution

Even if we don’t set one, the question always arises at this time of year…have you got any New Year’s resolution?

Often the answer includes any of the usual - lose weight, get fit, master a skill.

When you think about any of these they really are quite a big task. They require collecting a number of new good habits and getting rid of a few bad ones.

Often times it requires you becoming a new person entirely.

In his book ‘ Atomic Habits’, James Clear suggests that maybe the devil is in the detail, in the small everyday things which over time have a cumulative effect.

Consider taking the goal of losing 2 stone. After a week of eating salad and drinking water we become disheartened that we have not achieved our goal and the chocolate biscuits start to make a reappearance.

If we were to take the goal of ‘lose 2 stone’ and think more about what a person who is 2 stone lighter does. What decisions do they make on a daily basis? Do they take the stairs or use the lift? Do they have sugar in their coffee? Do they exercise regularly? Do they choose healthy food options? Do they snack on chocolate biscuits at night?

All of a sudden the goal isn’t really that important. It is the daily, sometimes hourly choices that lead to the end goal almost by way of a happy accident.

So perhaps the focus should be on accumulating one new good habit and once that is established, add in another. And another. And another. Think trajectory rather than end goal. Are you on the right path and if you stay on this path will you end up at your goal - or maybe better than your goal (self limiting beliefs is a whole new blog!)

The book also describes ways of acquiring these habits and understanding how to make them stick. Check it out!

So we wish you good luck with your one new habit for the New Year. We would love to hear what yours is.

Mine?

My goal is to to drink 2 litres of water per day. So broken down this is ‘I will drink a glass of water before every meal’.