Everyone knows the new year is the moment to decide to… stop smoking, lose half your body weight, exercise everyday for two hours, rise at five am to have more time, start to write your bestseller, abandon everything and go live on a tropical island… right ? Sounds familiar?

What probably also sounds familiar is doing that thing you wanted to do for a week… a month for the braver ones, and forgetting it altogether afterwards.  An American study followed the 200 New Year’s resolvers over a 2-year period. 77% of those people kept to their resolve for a week…but only 19% for two years. And among these successful resolution-keepers, the average number of lapses during those two years is fourteen.[1]  So, rest assured, you won’t be the only one not to stick to your decisions.

Most people would agree to say that it can be useful to take some time to reflect on your life and to think about what you want to change. But you don’t need to do that on the 1^st of January. If you really want to make New Year’s resolutions, here are my five suggestions.

1. I will stop trying to be perfect.

Perfectionism only makes you live in fear : the fear of making mistakes. But if you don’t put yourself in the position to make some, you’ll never do anything at all, for living is making mistakes. Hannah Arendt said it perfectly – no pun intended – “In order to go on living, one must try to avoid the death involved in perfectionism.”

Plus, you’re never satisfied : each time you reach a goal, you feel like you have to strive for another, usually dictated by society’s standards… the whole family, dog, house with picket fence by the time you’re thirty. The thing is that you don’t need to live by other people’s standards, especially those that are plastered on social media. The important thing is your own goals. Not perfection. You don’t need others to assess your value. You don’t need to be perfect: you only need to be good enough.

• I will not strive for the impossible.

It’s good to give up. Really. One study showed that being unable to disengage from unattainable goals actually results in physical inflammation.[2] Other findings show that the ability to disengage from unattainable goals is associated with better self-reported health and more normal cortisol secretion.[3] Psychology has started to study “goal disengagement”, and what science found is that abandoning goals that have become too costly in terms of health, for example, or well-being, is good for you.

Popular lore is all about persistence and perseverance in front of adversity. And it’s not always easy to let go of your dreams. However, Carsten Wrosch and his colleagues found that in many situations, life satisfaction and well-being rose when people were able to stop pursuing unachievable goals and choose more achievable ones.[4]

• I will take more time for myself

Even if you have a demanding job or a busy family life, it is vital to take some time to yourself, for yourself. You can spend that time having a nice bath, doing your nails, going to a walk, having a meal in a nice restaurant, reading a book… or just lie down and stare at the ceiling if you want to. The point is that it is your moment to be just you. Not a member of the staff, not a manager, not a wife, not a mother, not a daughter : just you.

• I will put myself first.

That doesn’t mean you have to become egocentric or egoistical. That means listening to yourself and your needs. Learning to say no. Learning to ask for what you want. If you want to go to a restaurant, don’t just say “I’ve read about this place which is supposed to be quite good.” Just say : “I’d like to go to that place – would you like to come?”

If you’re feeling something, don’t try to minimise it. You’re not “a bit under the weather”, or “a bit too busy”. And don’t let anyone try to persuade you otherwise : if you’re sick, busy etc… and you don’t want to go out, that’s your right. You don’t have to apologize for it.

The most important thing is to learn to listen to your needs and how to express them.

If you really want to make resolutions, here are a few tips to make them stick:

• Create an incentive. The old carrot and stick method. It works for children when you want them to behave, but it also works for adults. If you want to stop smoking, for instance, tell yourself you’ll spend the money you’ve spared on something you really want.
• Choose realistic goals : you’re not going to lose ten pounds in a week. You’re not going to go to the gym everyday. But you can decide to go once a week.
•  Aim for something specific : don’t just say you want to lose weight . Instead, you can choose to stop having double cream hot chocolates with sprinkles. Or eat take-out only once a week. Or have only one beer a week.
• Although… it helps if you frame your resolution positively instead of negatively  – as in not stopping to do something, but starting to do something. You’ll not eat fewer French fries, you’ll eat more greens. You’ll not spend less time playing video games, you’ll spend more time outside[5]…
• Tell people about it : they’ll make you feel accountable.

Happy New Year !

---

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0899328988800166?via%3Dihub

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17760771/

[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17259585/

[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4145404/

[5] https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/09/health/framing-new-years-resolutions-wellness/index.html