Be successful with your New Year’s Resolutions

It’s almost that time of year again.  When the hustle of the holiday seasons starts to subside, people start to look forward to the New Year and what that might bring.  For many people, it’s a time to set New Years’ resolutions or goals for themselves which often include health goals.  People often make resolutions to lose weight, to quit smoking, to go to the gym, to eat broccoli, but what invariably happens? By the first week in January, those goals have been abandoned in frustration.  Why?

Before we talk about ways to properly set goals, let’s first talk about the reasons goals fail.

Goals are guaranteed to fail if:

• you set them to please or satisfy someone else
• you are too vague in describing the goal
• you try to accomplish too much
• you only feel successful once you reach the ultimate goal
• you only focus on the goals that you didn't complete

When people set those New Year’s Resolutions, they have the best intentions to succeed.  The goal itself may not be the problem; rather, how it is designed is the problem.  For example, if the resolution is “I want to lose weight this year”, you can almost guarantee that it won’t happen based on that resolution or goal.  Try this: replace the word “want” with “wish”.  It now becomes “I wish to lose weight this year”.  You may wish and wish all you like, but unless you DO something, the wish or want will never materialize and the New Year’s resolution will not happen.

So how do you make resolutions or goals that actually work?  There are some points that need to be considered when setting a goal:

• It has to be your idea.  Don’t set a goal just to please someone else.
• It has to be achievable.   This means that it is realistic.  You should have confidence that you have at least a 70% chance of accomplishing that goal.  If not, then maybe it’s too ambitious and you should scale the goal back a bit.
• There has to be an action involved.  Your goal has to describe something that you will actually do.  Losing weight is not a goal because this is not an activity; there is no action.  However, if you set goals to walk regularly, change to diet pop, eat breakfast, give up the latte coffees, these are all actions that will help you lose weight which is the ultimate outcome.
• Your goal should include specifics such as what it is you want to do, how much or how often, when and perhaps with whom.  Detail in goals are very important!  It’s like a road map that helps you move along in the right direction and also helps you know when you've achieved your goal!

Back to that New Year’s Resolution of “I want to lose weight this year”.  Let’s make this a more meaningful goal.  How about stating:

“I will walk around the block for 20 minutes 3 times per week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons at 4:30 pm.”

This goal now is very specific.  If this type of goal is set and followed, then this will contribute to that ultimate outcome of weight loss.

Don’t abandon those thoughts about healthy behaviours for the New Year!  Just spend some time rephrasing what you want to accomplish and put them into a proper goal format.  You will then be well on your way!

Christina Vesty is a Registered Nurse and is the Chronic Disease Management Coordinator at the Leduc Beaumont Devon Primary Care Network.

Check out Dr. Mike Evan's video called "What is the single best thing you can do to quit smoking?"

The LBD PCN has a FREE Smoking Cessation program at our Leduc office. Please call our office at 780-986-6624 or see your LBD PCN family physician for a referral.