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Keeping New Year’s Resolutions
This is the time of year for making as well as breaking resolutions. Most resolutions – particularly those that deal with perennial problems - such as eating less, exercising more, being more patient, getting better organized – have a shelf life of less than a week.
Resolving to "Just Do It!" doesn’t seem to be enough for most people. Yet believing that you can't change and your dreams are nothing more than pipedreams, is a pessimistic, negativistic position that I hope you don’t fall into.
So what’s a person to do? As a starter, once you know "What" you want to change, you must then give importance to the “How?” (How can I implement the change?)
Here are a few ideas on that matter:
Don’t give up on yourself. Know in your heart and soul that you can change for the better. Muhammed Ali’s quote expresses it best. “A man who is the same at 50 as he was at 40 has wasted 10 years of his life.”
Develop an internal ‘nurturing parent’ who gently (and sometimes not so gently) lights a fire under you to motivate you to do what’s best for you - in the long run.
Know that you don’t have to “feel” like doing something in order to do it.
Recognize the difference between feeling good for the moment – (That tasted great!) and feeling good about yourself – (I feel terrific that I’m conquering my demons!)
Change your “I don’t know” sentence to a more upbeat one. “I don’t know ....but one thing I do know is....” (i.e. "I don’t know how to be more patient with my kids but one thing I do know is I can take 3 deep breaths and think about an alternative response before I just start yelling at them.”
Change your “I can’t” sentence to a more forward thinking one. “I can’t ...but I can...” (i.e. "I can’t find time to go to the gym but I can do at least 5 minutes of stretching every single day.")
Say what you mean and mean what you say. You’ll feel better about yourself when you set up an achievable goal rather than an over-the-top goal in which you are destined to fail.
Deliberately do something every day that you don't want to do. Notice how such things get easier to do as time goes on.
Create a time slot on your calendar to do whatever it is that you keep putting off. Refer to your calendar daily, making sure that you keep your commitments.
Be aware of what you are doing “right now”. If it’s not what you want, reverse direction, so that a short time later you’re doing something else.
Break down large, intimidating goals into an assortment of smaller, easier-to-do ones. This will help you to feel that you are on top of your game. (i.e. organize one drawer vs. clean up your whole house.)
Strive to act according to your own well planned goals rather than react against what you believe others expect you to do.
Here’s to the year 2008. May it be a year in which you achieve your goals and feel the subsequent joy and pride from your accomplishments.
Copyright 2008: Linda Sapadin, Ph.D. is a psychologist in private practice who specializes in helping individuals, families and couples overcome self-defeating patterns of behavior.
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