New decade, new you
Approaching a new year is always a good time to look back on the year that’s been and our lives. Do we want to continue doing what we’ve been doing or are there changes to be made? As Einstein is widely credited to have said, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results’. And this new year we will be moving into a new decade, what bigger excuse do we need to reassess our lives!
However, as the saying goes, we are creatures of habit and we all know changing those habits can be difficult. Fresh start moment, like moving into a new year, can be great to kick-start us into pursuing our goals with renewed energy. They work on the idea we don’t feel as good about our past as we’d like and such landmarks initiate a moment where we can wipe the slate clean of all those past failures and start afresh (Dai, Milkman & Rils, 2014). But maintaining that momentum can be more tricky. Psychology shows we are immune to change (Kegan and Lahey, 2009) and all to easily, despite knowing that change is for the best, we can find ourselves drifting back to the status quo. You only have to witness the tail off in people attending the gym from January to February to March to see this in action.
So what can we do about this, how can we make those new resolutions stick?
1. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. Be realistic when setting goals and think more about the small steps you can take to get you to your ultimate goal rather than trying to get straight there. Being too ambitious to start with can be overwhelming and demoralising if we start to slip up. Setting more achievable ‘stepping stone’ goals will help keep us on track and boost our confidence along the way to our ‘nirvana’ goal.
2. Use strong if-then rules. Rather than having fairly loose plans for change use very specific plans linked with a defined action. So, for example, rather than say this year I will get fitter, instead say, if it’s Saturday morning I will go for a jog/swim/cycle ride. Or, instead of this year I will be more organised, say, if I am opening up my email box I will make sure I also delete old mails from the previous day. This will help you stick to your resolution and help you work towards your goals.
3. Piggy back on existing behaviours. Try using your existing behaviours, particularly ones that you do on a regular/habitual basis, to help embed new ones. So, in a similar way as using if-then rules, we can build in a new behaviour using an existing one as a cue. So, for example, if we want to build up our on-line network, rather than just reading posts on LinkedIn, start adding comments as well.
4. Write it down. Keeping our intended new behaviours in our head they can easily get lost with the busyness of everyday life. Writing down our resolutions and then ideally sticking them somewhere visual, on our screen-save or fridge, will help to keep us focused and on track. Research shows we are 42% more likely to achieve our goals if we write them down.
So as we come to the close of 2019, let’s start to reflect on whether our current behaviours are serving us well. Maybe pick just one or two areas of improvement to focus on as we move into a new decade and use some of these tips to help embed these into our routine. And remember, the longer we stick at our new behaviours the easier they will become.
Wishing you all a very successful new year.
References
Dai, H., K.L. Milkman, J. Riis (2014). The Fresh Start Effect: temporal landmarks motivate aspirational behaviour, Management Science. 60(10): 2563–2582.
Kegan, R & Lahey, L (2009) Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization, Harvard Business Press