Make resolutions you can stick to
Are you in New Year’s resolution mode? Whatever you plan to change or achieve in 2014, just make sure it’s something you really want, says Abi Jackson
If you want to change something about yourself or your life, the first thing you need to do is identify what you really want to change.
Duh! Well that’s obvious, right?
But actually, it’s not that clear-cut – if it was, why would so many of us keep failing?
They key is in the word ‘really’.
“Come January, you hear lots of people saying, ‘I want to lose weight’. But how many of them actually do it? Not many, because they don’t even understand why they really want to do it,” says Tim Drummond (timdrummond.com), co-author of The 30/30 Body Blueprint.
As a personal coach and mentor, specialising in health, Drummond is used to hearing people say they ‘should’ do things like stop smoking or lose weight, but, he says, unless you really understand why you want to change something, you probably won’t succeed.
For instance, his brother’s wife had tried for 10 years to quit smoking without any joy – something countless people across the world will relate to. “Then the day she got pregnant, she stopped straight away,” says Drummond. “And the reason for that was because she suddenly understood why it was so important to her, and it was so important to her that she was prepared to do it no matter how tough and horrible it was in the meantime.”
Damian Hughes, author of How To Change Absolutely Anything, agrees. Changing behaviours is something he has experience of across all walks of life, advising businesses through his consultancy, LiquidThinker Ltd (www.liquidthinker.com), helping elite sports teams and athletes be at the top of their game and mentoring at an inner-city youth club.
Though what is being changed may vary greatly, the underlying foundations at the heart of whether or not it’ll work in the long-run remain the same.
“People often talk about motivation that comes from within and motivation that comes from the outside, but I believe there are three types of motivation,” he says. “You either act through desperation; that you ‘have’ to do something. People often say, ‘I have to lose weight’. Or people act through rationalisation, so they go, ‘Oh, I should lose weight, really’, or they act from a place of inspiration, which is where they go, ‘I really want to lose weight’.
“All three of them are applicable in different circumstances, but the most sustainable one is where you act from inspiration, where you really want to do something.”
So making a change begins with making an intelligent choice, notes Hughes. “Ditch the cliches,” he advises. “Don’t resolve to lose weight just because it’s the new year; ask yourself what it is that you genuinely want to change or improve, whether it’s health or wellbeing or a hobby or whatever.”
Just saying you really want to do something won’t cut it either – as Drummond pointed out, you have to understand where this is coming from, why you want it.
That’s about looking at the emotions attached to your aims.
“A lot of my clients say they want to lose weight because they want to walk down the beach feeling proud of themselves and confident, or to be able to go shopping and know they can pick something off the rack and it will fit them,” says Drummond. “These may sound like simple things, but actually the emotion attached to them is very revealing.”
Similarly, if the ‘right’ motivations aren’t in place, no amount of success will make you happy – society is full of people, especially in the world of finance for example, who work extremely hard and are a dab hand at setting goals and achieving them, but they’re still not happy. Doing something purely to impress others, or achieve a certain status if your heart’s not really in it, isn’t the path to fulfilment.
“There’s a famous quote: once you have a powerful ‘why’, the ‘how’ takes care of itself,” says Hughes. “Things aren’t meaningful without a ‘why’.”
That’s step one taken care of. But making a change – and sticking to it – is still a daunting and tricky process.
Drummond and Hughes both agree that breaking things down into small steps is the next key.
“We know that lack of information [about why they need to change something] isn’t the problem,” explains Drummond. “The problem is that people, for whatever reason, often don’t follow it.”
For example, with the wealth of advice in media and on the internet, we could all be experts in healthy eating. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to actually eat the perfect diet.
“People tend to completely overload themselves with challenges at this time of year, and say, ‘Right, I’m going to make this big change’. We have crazy ideas about amazing transformations. Then people end up feeling it’s impossible, and give up.”
With his clients, whether it’s an individual or an organisation, Drummond suggests focusing on what can be done in the first 30 days.
“Research shows that it takes around 28-30 days to break a habit,” he says. “If you can continue a new behaviour pattern for that long, then chances are you’ll be able to stick with it. Breaking habits is hard – our brains don’t like it. The only way to change those patterns in your brain, is by repeating something over and over until it feels normal.
“Our brains are programmed to think short-term,” Drummond adds. “Long-term goals can overwhelm us, it’s too much. But looking at what you’re going to change in the next 30 days is less daunting, and improves your chances of making a change for life.”
Hughes suggests breaking up your ‘mission’ into a numbered scale. “Picture where you want to be, and let that be 10 on the scale. Then think about where you are now. If you’re at 4, look at what you need to do to move to 5.
“If you try and jump straight to 10 it has two effects. It either intimidates you, as it seems too far away, or you tend to catastrophasize it, thinking, ‘Oh, I’ll never get there’. But if you think, ‘Ok, I’m at 4 at the moment, tomorrow I’ll try and get to 5’, that helps you break it into incremental steps. Change is just a numbers game really.”
Keeping a positive mindset is also vital. Again, this sounds very simplistic, but the positivity needs to run throughout the process – not just exist in the ‘end result’ you hope to achieve.
“Come from a place of inspiration,” says Hughes. “Rather than saying, ‘I don’t want to be fat’, say, ‘I want to be healthy’ – do you see the difference? Rather than focusing on the negatives, the consequences of not doing something, look at the benefits of doing it.”
Our brains tend to be far more effective machines when we’re driven by positive vibes, rather than dark, negative thoughts which drag us down. Even something as seemingly small as changing the language you use can make a difference. For example, when he works with athletes, Hughes uses the term ‘dreams’ instead of ‘goals’.
“The word ‘goal’ can seem quite bland and boring,” he says. “We talk about dreams. What’s your dream? Why is that your dream? I work in the Premier League too, and one of the players says his dream is for his son to see him play at Old Trafford.”
He employs similar tactics when working with businesses – for instance, something as simple as having a ‘rehearsal’ can reboot a dull meeting.
“It’s about tapping into the right side of your brain, where your imagination and emotion is,” Hughes adds. “Once you start with a dream, that’s where your fuel comes from, that’s the motivation. Then it’s about using the rational, logical part of your brain to break it down and ask yourself, ‘Ok, so what do I need to get there?'”
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