The New Year is the ideal time to propose to make significant changes that improve your life. Generally, these are habits that we want to change or healthy habits that we want to incorporate, such as quitting smoking, going to the gym, losing weight, starting a new business, finding a job, reading more, and saving more money. However, as the months go by, most abandon their promises, their motivation fades, and they return to their old lifelong habits.
Are you really prepared to address those promises of radical changes in your life? We help you identify 5 signs that your New Year’s resolutions will fail and ways to increase your chances of success.
How to know if your New Year’s resolutions will fail
1. You feel compelled to set New Year’s resolutions
In January, virtually everyone you meet is committed to self-improvement, so it’s easy to get caught up in the New Year fever and feel compelled to make big-goal decrees.
Trying to impress or please others can be a powerful impulse to change old habits, but relying on external motivation will likely lead us directly to the failure of our purposes . This is because decisions made under external pressure do not necessarily align with what people want for themselves.
If you want to increase your chances of success in keeping your promises at the end of the year, focus on what you really need and care about. Keep in mind that sustainable behavior change comes from the inside out; that is, of intrinsic motivation.
Connect with what inspires you, reflect on what drives and excites you, and then formulate your resolutions around these positive feelings.
2. You don’t have an established plan
We often think of everything we want to change, but we don’t write down our New Year’s resolutions .
Making a list makes it easier for your goals to stop being an invisible idea or thought and helps you to visualize them concretely to take the actions you need to achieve them.
What can you do to improve the chances of meeting your goals? Take an inventory of the successes you’ve had in your life, work, school, and relationships and create a personalized plan for success. That paper can serve as a powerful reminder of how you achieved your previous accomplishments.
No matter what you want to achieve, remember that you can set small goals that are manageable and achievable. Read your list frequently and check off what you get. Also, you can find someone to support you, such as a personal trainer if your goal is to improve your physique and health.
3. You are in a state of denial
It is almost impossible to make positive changes in your life if you are denying that there is a problem in the first place. This is one of the signs why so many people fail in their New Year’s resolutions.
People in denial tend to blame others for their problems rather than take personal responsibility and adopt unhealthy behaviors. In addition, they tend to be scattered: they focus on other things and therefore are distracted from the aspect of their life that need to change.
What to do about it? You must understand that you are in a process of denial and work on it in order to change your present reality. However, denial is often temporary, and sometimes it’s just the first step in preparing you for a major change. Therefore, if you really put your mind to it, you can go beyond denial and move into a state of awareness of the problem you want to solve.
4. Your goal is unrealistic
Overly ambitious and impractical goals only frustrate and overwhelm, not to mention set you up for the failure of your New Year’s resolutions .
To discern if a goal is achievable, think about the 5 actions you can take to reach it. If you cannot generate a satisfactory response, then you should reevaluate your goal to one that is achievable .
In any case, it is important to pay attention to how we grow in the process, as the work we are willing to do challenges our beliefs of what is possible for ourselves. This is perhaps the most rewarding aspect of goal setting , so enjoy the journey and take pride in your personal evolution.
5. You are obsessed with past failures
Everyone knows the saying “if at first you don’t succeed, try again”. However, some people are terrified to try one more time, after failing to deliver on a New Years promise.
Most likely, in relation to this topic, you will feel anxious and discouraged at the possibility of trying one more time. And it is that self-judgment and paralysis after a failure is one of the greatest obstacles to achieving personal change .
What can you do against this? You must forgive yourself for failing in the past and turn the inner critic into a coach. Use kind and supportive language with yourself, and instead of saying “I’ll never make it,” say “I believe in me.”
Don’t let perfection be your enemy. Setbacks are incredibly useful tools for resetting and strengthening your plan. Reframe failure and view it as a lesson learned. By turning obstacles into learning opportunities, you will be less afraid to try again and begin to see failures as useful and necessary stops along the way of your journey of change.
conclusion
If you feel impregnated by the Christmas spirit and in the New Year you want to establish change resolutions to improve your life , keep in mind these 5 signs that will indicate if you are going to fail in the attempt:
- You feel compelled to set New Years resolutions.
- You don’t have a plan.
- You are in denial.
- Your goal is not realistic.
- You are obsessed with past failures.
If you detect any of these signs, reevaluate the approach and be honest with yourself, since New Year’s resolutions are actually habits to build a new habit in your life.
Reference
- Osnato, J. 6 Signs Your New Year’s Resolution Is Going to Fail – But Doesn’t Have To! For Livestrong [Revised December 2018].
