Failing at Our New Year’s Resolutions

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I hope that you fail at your New Year’s resolutions.new-years-eve-114011__180

Admittedly, I have never been much of one for New Year’s resolutions. I suspect, if I am being honest with myself, that one of the reasons for my avoidance is the security of knowing that if I don’t make a resolution I don’t have to fail at a resolution (or experience the unpleasant feelings of guilt and defeat that accompany repeatedly forgoing exercise for a Netflix binge). Now, I do appreciate and even envy folks that devise thoughtful and creative goals for the New Year. A fella over at Verily has written about some of his previous resolutions and they are both fun and creative. Anyway, I have been inspired to try resolutions this year. They are simple: exercise five days a week for at least 45 minutes, silent prayer for 30 minutes a day, and read one new non-school related book each month.

I hope that I fail at my New Year’s resolutions.

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SMARTER Goals for the New Year

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new-year-2015New Year’s resolutions are common, but even more ubiquitous are jokes about the failure of those resolutions.   Nevertheless, we all know that some changes are important, so how can you defy the stereotype and make a successful resolution this year? Help is here in the form of some common wisdom (SMART goals), uncommon research (from John Norcross) and some personal additions on the process of setting goals.

To set the stage, here are some insights from research on New Year’s resolutions by John Norcross and colleagues (found here).

First:  Setting goals (or making resolutions) is important.  This study found that 46% of those who made a resolution were successful with that change six months later, compared to only 4% of those who did not resolve.
Second: The first few weeks are critical.  More than half of those who reported being unsuccessful at six months reported they were already unsuccessful in the first two weeks.  Over 70% of those who made it to four weeks also made it to six months successfully.

So what can we offer you to help you make good resolutions and get started successfully?

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