They just don’t work very well!

We all mean well with New Year’s resolutions, and we go through the process again, each and every New Year. We really want to stop smoking, or cut down on drinking, or exercise regularly, or be more grateful for what we’ve got in life, or be a better person in some particular way … but more often than not, after a few days or weeks, it starts to fizzle out. We don’t meet our targets.

We start to lose hope that we can achieve our aims. And ultimately we stop trying.

What the hell’s wrong with us?

Not much actually. We’re just going about it in a not very organised way. And if you fail to plan, as the saying goes, you’re actually planning to fail. No, there’s nothing basically wrong with us, because we want to do better. And that’s the most important thing. We really do want to be fitter, stronger, kinder, more prosperous, etc, but we just don’t go about it in the best possible way.

How to go about making resolutions that actually work

The really big thing about lousy resolutions is that they’re … well, they’re just really too big. We want to get fitter so we resolve to train every day. We want to stop smoking so we determine that we will stop on a certain day and never smoke again. We want to make money so we start a new project and expect it to open the money flood gates in a matter of days.

Sadly, it doesn’t quite work that way. As you’ve no doubt found out for yourself. And making a determination that we will do these things and we will see results, is almost bound to lead to failure. Failure quickly followed by despair. We simply lose hope.

The plain fact is we’re setting out sights too high. Sure, we want to achieve great things, nothing wrong with that. But the way to go about it isn’t to shoot directly for those major targets, it’s to shoot for the mini-targets along the way. If you break each goal into smaller chunks, then you’re on the right track.

Break major goals down into smaller targets

Break that huge goal into smaller chunks

Once you break your huge, overwhelming goals into smaller, more easily reachable goals, then the whole thing becomes easier. For example, let’s say you want to exercise every day. Okay, let’s break that down.

Make it a target to exercise twice a week. That’s easier! Right away you feel you can do that. Then, instead of a long, hard workout, make your exercise sessions shorter and lighter. Now you’re getting somewhere!

So you decide to do, let’s say, ten minutes of exercise at least twice a week. Mmm … that should be do-able. And if ten minutes feels like you’re trying to do too much to start off with, go for five. The important thing is to make a start. And to set yourself a goal that you can actually achieve.

Feel the satisfaction of achieving your goals

Start doing the two sessions a week. And it’s okay if they’re short, even just five minutes each. At least you’re doing something, which is infinitely better than the alternative – doing nothing. And you will be moving in the right direction. You will have overcome inertia. Even five minutes exercise is good, and it will deliver results. And the great thing is that you will actually feel that you’re achieving something!

You know what comes next, right? Sure you do! You start to feel good that you’re making progress, and you start actually enjoying the exercise. Because you’re not setting your sights too high, you’re hitting the target, and that in itself feels good. So naturally you want more …

So you’ll start doing an extra session sometimes, making it three a week. And you’ll probably go from five minutes to seven or eight without even thinking about it, because it’s not a big thing, it’s just a little additional work. The hardest part of any training session is getting yourself motivated to start! And once you’ve got over that hurdle you naturally want to do more.

It builds organically

You don’t have to make any spectacular efforts to increase your workouts, it happens almost by itself. Because it feels good, you just want to do a bit more, or a bit more often. Using this approach, you’ll probably find it won’t be very long before you’re exercising practically every day, even if on some days you take it very light. The important thing is you’re making progress!

Use it on everything!

Use this approach on a major goal (breaking it down and making it easier to achieve), and once you see that it works, apply it to another major goal. Maybe you want to drink more water every day – makes sense, since most of us are dehydrated much of the time. Well, instead of trying to aim for drinking ten glasses of water every day, start small – just drink a glass of water first thing in the morning, until it starts to become a habit. Then gradually move on to bigger achievements, like drinking a glass of water half an hour after each meal (better than with the meal, since that might well interfere with the normal process of digestion).

Again, in a short time, you’ll find you’re drinking a lot more water, and you’ll feel the benefit of it. And without trying to rush into doing too much too soon.

You want to quit smoking? If the very thought of it makes you feel like you can’t manage to do it, then settle for cutting out that after-meal smoke you always have. You know, the one you automatically have, even though it’s clearly not part of the meal yet somehow you’ve made it part of the whole meal process. Determine that you’ll do whatever it takes to cut that smoke out, even if it takes you a week or so to break that after-meal-smoke habit.

You’re not trying to quit smoking, so you can relax! You’re just aiming for an easy goal, cutting out that particular smoke. Once you feel you’ve hit that target and you don’t feel any sense of being deprived of that smoke, move on – set your sights on another target. Maybe the first smoke of the day.

Let’s say you usually have a smoke before breakfast – make that your next target, to survive without that smoke (yeah, I know, I used the word ‘survive’ there … sounds ridiculous really, but if you’ve been used to that smoke that might well be how it will feel).

Take the stealthy approach

Use this method to get nearer to your big goals, the ones that are so overwhelming you usually feel you have no chance of achieving them. Creep up on them bit by bit, chipping away at the hold they have on you (if it’s an unwanted habit, such as smoking), or building them up gradually (if it’s a good habit, such as exercising regularly).

Resolve to do better!

So, instead of making huge, life-changing resolutions, try this softer, easier approach, and achieve your goals a different way. They might take a bit longer than you’d like, but you’re likely to achieve them. Rushing in, all guns blazing, is more likely to end in disappointment … the same disappointment you’ve felt time and again after setting sky-high resolutions in the past.

Instead of making those unattainable New Year resolutions you’ve made so many times before, try this approach.
Resolve, instead, to just do better! Keep it simple. Just resolve to do better this year than last.
And make it happen by breaking your big goals down into smaller, more easily digestible chunks.
That way you’ll achieve them, and without that nasty feeling of having bitten off
more than you could chew!