New Year’s Resolution: When Do We Drop It?

It is always hard and difficult to stay resolute on New Year’s Resolution. Last year I wrote an article in Eyezone Magazine entitled “Are Optometry New Year’s Resolutions different than Non-Optometry New Year’s resolutions?”. Since then I received many messages from colleagues that the recommendations I provided in the article are very helpful but still not practical when a lot needs to be accomplished. Their experience with the process I provided is literally the same experience I had when I started making long lists of resolutions.

Resolutions are about change that consists of reviewing past events in the present time and thinking of a different future. We may learn lessons from past experiences that can be applied to repeatable actions however we cannot predict the future. No one can guarantee that motivation lasts till you accomplish your goal. Based on those assumptions, last year we followed a process and we suggested that if we’d be able to implement it we should be able to accomplish more resolutions. The process looked at three stages the past, the present, and the future. From the past, we tried to collect information about a “Why, because” statement that showed us why we succeeded or failed in accomplishing specific goals as well as the reason for that happening. The present answered a “What, how” statement that showed us what we were currently doing to sustain a successful situation and how it is impacting our success. The future was conceived around an “if, then” series of statements aligned in a probabilistic way but much more related to uncontrollable events that can never be on intention.

The reason we followed that process is that we were aware that most of us would have abandoned our New Year’s resolutions by the time the article gets published. We knew that, because according to a New York Times research, one in four abandons his New Year’s resolutions by January 8, and less than 10% of resolutions are actually kept by year-end. Moreover, 80% of resolutions fail within six weeks. This means that eight out of ten resolutions fail by Valentine’s day. A common explanation for that is motivation to accomplish a resolution is significant the moment the resolution is set, we are convinced that the current situation is not acceptable, and change must be initiated. However, our motivation declines over time and the moment we lose all the incentive to continue on the resolution is the moment actually we drop the idea and no change occurs.

Despite all the motivation, well-intended goals, and written plans, the path to acting on intentions and achieving goals as well as executing those plans the way we want them can be very different than what we have originally conceived. Challenges emerge and obstacles often cause us to change our course leading us to wane our motivation and forgo the whole resolution. Mitch Finn, an Accredited Exercise Scientist and Member Development Officer at Exercise & Sports Science Australia (ESSA), suggests a framework for those who want to stay resolute on New Year’s resolution concerning exercising more. The series of steps he suggests include making a plan, making time, starting small, finding a friend, making it fun, and getting advice. Mitch’s framework is an example of a very elaborate process that can be applied to any resolution. When it comes to applying a framework or coming up with a framework ourselves It all goes down to finding ways to create a habit that grows over time rather than being driven by motivation that slows over time. There’s more to write about creating daily small habits that add up to accomplishing bigger goals which would make a great topic for the coming blog post.