There is something about flipping the calendar over to a new year that prompts many of us to want to adopt better habits such as eating healthier, drinking less alcohol or exercising more.
These are worthy goals. Taking care of your body and mind can give you more energy, improve your mood, and have many positive effects on your long-term physical and mental health. Yet despite the best of intentions, many of these New Year’s resolutions will fall by the wayside, usually within a few weeks.
There are many reasons why our attempts to adopt healthy habits are unsuccessful, says New Dundee, Ontario well-being educator and coach Rebecca Byers.
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Sometimes the fault lies in the goals we’ve chosen. They may be poorly defined or may not fit our personalities or life circumstances. Or maybe it’s due to a lack of accountability, or a failure to plan for missteps may be responsible.
Whatever the reasons, it doesn’t have to be that way. By applying the principles of positive psychology to our goals, we can have a much higher success rate, says Byers, who teaches an online interactive course that helps women adopt these techniques for their own unique situations.
And once these positive behaviours become habits, we won’t have to rely on willpower, which greatly improves our odds of sticking to them. Says Byers, “Like when we get in the car, we automatically put on our seatbelts. It starts with an environmental cue that triggers an action. Neurons that fire together, wire together.”
If we want our New Year’s resolutions to be more than wishful thinking, begin by crafting goals that are meaningful. Goal-setting is a powerful process for thinking about and clarifying what we want to achieve in the future, says Byers. The first step is to identify meaningful goals that align with your wants, needs, values, vision and purpose.
Goals also need to be SMART, which stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound. Byers elaborates on each of these attributes.
- Specific: Goals need to be clearly defined and understood. Look at your what, why, when and how. What do I want to achieve and how will I get there?
- Measurable: It’s easier to track your progress and know if you have achieved your goal if you can measure it in some way.
- Achievable: Is it realistic? Is it doable from time, resources and skill perspectives?
- Relevant: Why is this goal important to you? Are you intrinsically motivated to achieve this goal?
- Time-bound: Is the target clear? If it will take more than a month to achieve the goal, break it down into smaller steps.
Still, there are other considerations that will increase your odds of success even more than ensuring your goals meet the SMART goal criteria, Byers says. These include using primers, planning for pitfalls, making a commitment, keeping yourself accountable and using rewards.
Primers are conscious or unconscious cues that remind you of your goal. These could include Post-it notes, phone alarms, notes on your calendar or using strategically placed objects, such as leaving your running shoes by the door to remind you to go for a run.
Pitfall-planning involves creating intentions for dealing with anticipated obstacles when they arise to help you stay on track.
You can also show your commitment to a goal by writing it down, posting it on social media, sharing it with others or signing up for a challenge.
Being accountable to someone else such as an exercise partner will help you overcome inertia.
And finally, to keep yourself motivated, celebrate and reward yourself for wins.
There are several additional things we can do to make it easier to turn goals into habits, adds Byers. Focus on keystone habits such as sleep, exercise and planning your day. A change in a keystone habit can start a chain reaction and have far-reaching effects. For example, if you get more exercise, you may have a better mood and sleep better.
Stack a new habit onto a current behaviour you already do easily. Current habits can serve as cues for new ones.
Pair a new habit with a desired behaviour like listening to an audio book while you go for a walk to make it more appealing.
Design your environment for success. Make your habit cues obvious and visible and remove temptations.
Use if/then statements to outline the desirable behaviour you will perform following a specific cue.
“Putting your habit on your calendar gives it a time and a place to live in your life,” says Byers. “It provides a reminder and accountability to help keep you on track.”
Keep track of your habits and revise your action plan if necessary. Revisit your goals regularly and make adjustments as necessary. “You may need to scale back, tweak your plan, or come up with other ways to work around pitfalls or setbacks,” says Byers.
Get help from others, whether it’s to help you clear time in your schedule to pursue your goal, as an accountability partner, or as a cheerleader to encourage you.
Byers has one final piece of advice. Make the habit as easy as possible and keep goals small to begin with, she recommends. “The cumulative impact of consistency will carry you to long-term success.”
Need to break a bad habit?
What if you’re trying to break a bad habit rather than start a good habit? Well-being coach Rebecca Byers says you will be more successful if you focus on transforming the habit into a better practice instead of trying to stop a behaviour.
Here’s how this works: First identify the old habit, then identify the craving or cue that triggers it.
Then, using the same cue, identify a new routine and a better reward. Here’s an example. If you crave a snack, have a cup of tea instead.
Write your plan down for extra reinforcement.
Being aware of and making a plan to help you avoid the willpower robbers can also increase success, says Byers. Stress, pain, low blood sugar, sleep deprivation and decision fatigue make it harder to stick to our good intentions. On the other hand, meditation, exercise, time in nature, social support and laughter can boost our willpower.
“Don’t let yourself be derailed by slip-ups and slowdowns. Use positive self-talk instead.”
Wheel of Life exercise
The Wheel of Life is a popular coaching tool that helps people assess if the ways they are using resources such as time, attention and energy align with their values and aspirations.
Typically, the Wheel of Life is divided into pie-shaped sections such as health, family, fun, helping others, work, finances, learning, spiritual fulfillment and community. Or you can customize it with what you think is most important.
Then colour in the pie-shaped sections based on your satisfaction level with each section. Once completed, look to see:
Where is your wheel out of balance?
Which of these areas would you most like to improve?
Pick one to three areas to focus on making changes to increase the rating.
What would it take to move your ratings up a level or two?
For more ideas on how to use the Wheel of Life go to blog.mynextcompany.eu/en/12-new-and-original-ways-to-use-the-wheel-of-life. Blank templates that you can fill in for yourself are available.
Resources
- Wellness coach Rebecca Byers website at livewellbehappy.ca/
- The 1-minute Secret for forming a new habit TED Talk
- Tiny Habits system at tinyhabits.com is based on 20 years’ research into behavioural science by Dr. BJ Fogg at Stanford University
