Resolutions! A New Year’s resolution is a tradition, most common in the West but found around the world, in which a person makes a promise on New Year’s Eve to make certain changes or self-improvements in the year ahead.
It is believed that the Babylonians were the first to make New Year’s resolutions around 4,000 years ago, and people all over the world have been breaking them ever since!
According to a 2012 study at the University of Scranton, 45 per cent of Americans make New Year’s resolutions and only eight per cent succeeded. A 2013 article in the Toronto Star reports 60 per cent of Canadians make resolutions with 19 per cent staying on track for entire year.
So should resolutions be scrapped and people resigned to another year with a tarnished halo? Or would changing personal attitudes and habits to achieve real results?
There is an explosion of studies into how the brain works. This has more experts attempting to explain the science behind why people make resolutions, why they are not kept and how to keep them. Here some points to ponder:
The actual benefit of making a resolution really depends on the person and is meant to be an individual decision. Some people are more apt to respond to accountability than others, who are more averse. It just depends on how the person is built.
A resolution is something a person makes; resolve is something a person has. The distinction is important as people break resolutions because they’re not really resolving to do anything different. They’re just wishing.
Without a strong resolve, success is highly unlikely, as one needs to commit, to choose into an intentional process that will make change.
Goal setting, while admirable, is essentially pointless. Goals, in and of themselves, aren’t sustainable. They say where a person wants to go, not how they’re going to get there. What is needed, are new habits, a new way of living that will bring different results.
People cannot think/talk their way out of or into a habit. Agreeably, resolutions are the first step toward change. Yet, thinking/talking about making a change won’t do it.
People have to be prepared to make and take strategic actions. Remember: actions speak louder than words.
Willpower. A 2013 study by Wilhelm Hoffmann of the University of Chicago, showed that people with the best self-control, paradoxically, are the ones who use their willpower less often. Instead of fending off one urge after another, these people set up their lives to minimize temptations, using their willpower proactively.
Brains cannot hold opposing ideas at the same time. People act according to what they imagine or believe about themselves and the world. ‘Walk it like you talk it’ is the congruence of behaviour matching beliefs and congruence better leads to success.
So is a person ‘a nonsmoker temporarily challenged by the use of tobacco or a smoker who is desperately trying to quit?’
Practice, practice and then do it again some more. When a routine is repeated daily, it soon becomes part of the conscious thinking. It then seeps into the habit part of the brain, the subconscious mind, creating new neurons-synapses connections. This new hard wiring increases efficiency.
Constant repetition helps actions become easier to perform thus the actions are more pleasure than work. Pleasure supports sustainability.
The point here is that is important to ‘be the change you want to be’ and becoming so is anything but easy. As professional support is often needed and helpful it is a good idea to speak with a doctor (GP), health professional or a therapist/counsellor.
Pamela Ana, MA & CCC, owns Wellness Matters Counselling and Psychotherapy. Call 778-419-3300.
