By Kelly Hearn
It is time to re-think New Year’s resolutions. Restricting contemplation of our lives and aspirations to one day a year is like waiting for Valentine’s Day to tell our loved ones we care; celebrating life exclusively on our birthday; being grateful merely for the 24 hours that constitute Thanksgiving. These calendar dates invite us to pause and reflect, but equally can feel a heavy reminder of how little pausing and reflecting we do the other 364 days of the year. So we try to cram it all in, furiously hoarding all of our good intentions then getting overwhelmed rather than inspired by them. No wonder New Year’s resolutions have such dismal success rates.
A ‘New Year, New You’ approach also implicitly suggests that the starting place is one of ‘not okay’ as it is, and so is tinged with shame. ‘I’m not okay’ is a rather demoralising launching pad for a new year. We fill our minds with ‘I have to work harder’ or ‘must go to the gym more’ or ‘need to start meditating’ …or dating or whatever it is… So many ‘musts’ and ‘shoulds’ become hard work: requirements often externally inspired as ways we feel we need to improve ourselves in order to be accepted or belong.
So as we approach yet another season of resolutions, we suggest two significant tinkers to the process. The first is to move away from the annual resolution ritual to one of daily intentions. Getting into a regular habit of asking the simple question ‘What matters most today?’ This type of attention to intentions takes time and practice. There are so many distractions vying for our precious time. It takes discipline to shut these out for a bit, not to be seduced. But it need not be hard labour. A few minutes in the morning (or evening before) merely asking the questions ‘What’s most important today? What do I want to achieve today?’ is a manageable start. Pick the time of day that suits you best and make it a habit like brushing teeth or showering. Paper diaries can be very useful here – some of them even have space for a ‘daily focus’ or similar, or we can add this ourselves. Having a reminder is helpful, particularly early days before the practice becomes habit. The key point is to arrive at a theme or aspiration for the coming day.
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing,” said Annie Dillard in The Writing Life. Sometimes we forget this. We become so fixated on the big, transformational goals that we overlook the meaningful change simple daily actions can usher in over time. The beauty of this approach also means that we get a new chance to make these positive steps every day and don’t need to wait until next January to be accountable to ourselves. And note that behavioural scientists like BJ Fogg have long pointed to such Tiny Habits as a more successful route to lasting change.
A second suggestion is to adjust the starting point from one that is critical and shaming to one that is more open and nurturing. We can think of this as moving away an ‘inner critic’ role to one that is more ‘inner champion.’ Whereas the critic would have us believe we are fundamentally lacking, the champion gets that we are ‘perfectly imperfect’ already yet understands and supports our desire for growth. Similar to a parent or friend who loves us as we are but wants the best for us so cheers us on in our endeavours, we start with acceptance for ourselves but also acknowledgement that there are things we want to do to increase our general happiness and wellbeing. We can tie goals or actions to areas where we want to live more fully in our values, or feel more energised and alive in our bodies, instead of focusing on where we feel we need to change to be okay. Again, anchoring these aspirations in small daily intentions.
Compare and contrast:
‘I want to lose 5 kg because I feel disgusting after all of the lockdown holiday eating and can’t even look at myself in the mirror.’
‘I want to prioritise my morning walk today because I feel more energised and grounded when I make time for myself in this way.’
Re-read the above. Maybe even say the sentences aloud. Notice how each motivates you (or not). There is a growing body of research that reinforces how a kinder, more nurturing approach proves more motivating in helping people achieve goals. And chunking out these goals in daily actions means we get to benefit from the completion bias, the pleasure of merely completing a task which feels good and beats relying on white-knuckled willpower to get us to a distant finish line. Perhaps give these tinkers a try in 2021? We’d love to hear how you get on!
