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‘Tis the season for making – and breaking – New Year’s Resolutions…

Are you one of the 40-50% of Americans who make a resolution each year? If you are, will you be part of the 20% who keeps them, or the 80% who breaks them?

Fortunately, new research reveals proven strategies that can dramatically increase your chances of keeping your resolutions, and turning year-end ambitions into year-long lifestyle changes.

But first, the facts about New Year’s Resolutions (or, as we will call them, NYRs)…

JUST THE FACTS, MA’AM…

- Each year about this time, 40-50% of Americans intend to make a resolution
- This percentage has roughly doubled since the 1930s and 1940s
- The vast majority of resolutions fall into three categories: losing weight, quitting smoking, and starting an exercise program
- NYRs are ancient. Over 4,000 years ago, Babylonians tried to start the New Year “fresh” by repaying debts and returning borrowed items. Two thousand years ago, Romans ended the year by reviewing the one before, resolving to achieve more, and paying homage to Janus, the god of doorways and beginnings (and namesake of the month January).
- Surprise! The vast majority of people who make resolutions break them. Usually quickly.

THE BIG QUESTION: DO THEY WORK?

Do New Year’s Resolutions work? Well, sort of. Research suggests that the long-term success rates of NYRs are only about 15-20%. Put another way, 80-85% are not able to keep their resolutions over a one to two year period. For example, at some point in their lives, nearly half of Americans have made a New Year’s resolution to lose weight or change their eating habits; of those, 20% broke their resolution within a week, 68% broke it within three months, and only 15% kept their resolution for a year or longer.

But the news isn’t all bad. The process of making a commitment like a New Year’s resolution does appear to increase the likelihood of making a life change and sticking to it. In other words, only 15-20% of resolution-makers are able to keep their resolutions, but people who try to make the same kinds of life changes without making a resolution do even worse.

THE EVEN BIGGER QUESTION

How can you increase your chances of sticking to your resolution? (Or, for you non-resolution makers, making some other kind of life change). Fortunately, research has revealed the success strategies of resolution-keepers.

1. Start with realistic goals

Many people make resolutions that are so ambitious, they have little hope of achieving them. Although such ambitious goals can sometimes be motivating and inspirational, they are more often daunting and overwhelming. The result: people give up because they think that “there’s no way to get there from here.” For example, obese people typically set goals of losing three times more than they have typically lost in prior weight loss efforts.

2. Supplement your annual “resolution” with near-term goals

A resolution to lose 100 pounds is not only unrealistic, but it is too long-term a goal to be truly motivating. Odds are you’ll find yourself sitting around for 9 or 10 months taking little action, living in denial, or perhaps forgetting about your resolution altogether.

Try supplementing your annual goals with monthly, or even weekly, goals. Although it’s good to a have a long-term vision of what you want to accomplish, research shows that these more near-term goals lead to better performance, greater confidence, enhanced persistence, and more satisfaction with life than longer-term goals.

3. Create plans for success

Near-term goals enhance performance because people work harder as deadlines approach, and because they spur the process of making plans for success.

Let’s face it: most people who resolve to lose weight or start exercising don’t really flesh out strategies for accomplishing their goals. They may buy a diet book or join the gym, but that’s about it. And of course, that explains why millions of diet books are sold, yet we still have an obesity epidemic, and health clubs are overflowing in January but back to normal by March.

So if you are resolving to lose weight, set some goals to accomplish in the first few weeks of January, and flesh out plans and strategies for accomplishing them. Joining a gym is great, but you are more likely to actually go to the gym if you make plans to exercise with a workout buddy, or commit to twice-a-week workouts with a trainer, or buy a pedometer to measure how many steps you take on the treadmill.

4. Create a plan for slips and setbacks

A strategy for setbacks is just as important as a strategy for success. People who maintain their NYRs for at least two years report an average of 14 slips or setbacks during that time.

The key, of course, is rebounding from setbacks, rather than letting them snowball into full-blown relapses. First, try to avoid the all-or-none thinking that triggers the snowball effect. Then, create a “setback plan” that you will enact at the first sign of a slip.

For example, try filling in the blank: If I start an eating binge that will undermine my weight loss resolution, I will _____ . Examples might include calling a friend for support, or temporarily distracting myself by going to a movie.

REFERENCES

For detailed references for research cited in this article, and more proven strategies for keeping your NYRs, see Psychological Foundation of Success: A Harvard-Trained Scientist Separates the Science of Success from Self-Help Snake Oil by Stephen Kraus, Ph.D.

I naturally resist change.

Even when doing nothing, just sitting. Even when doing something that doesn’t produce results. Inertia, sameness, acquiescence. That’s what I call those silent, dominating forces that quell my unreasonable thoughts about actually changing my weight. Change? Bah!

Especially, radical change.

When pursuing weight loss goals, “to lose three waistline inches and be fit, trim, healthy, and happy,” for some, as it was for me at first, was too much change for my noggin to mentally cope with. It was out of bounds. I could hear that penalty judge shrieking his whistle in my mind. That weight loss referee, stopping the game, “Too much to lose! Return to safer goals.”

A few weight loss friends of mine, who’ll go unnamed, have tried the name-brand goals approach: “Lose 7 Pounds in 7 Days,” only to see the belly fat rebound with a vengeance and come back in tumblers. At such time, I’m reminded to consider the simple old saying,

“If things aren’t working, try something different.”

Like something less like fireworks (that blow up quickly and are gone) and more like flowers (that grow slowly, blossom unhurriedly, and remain for the season). More gradual weight loss goals are not only healthier physically, but more desirable emotionally. It allows for you to accept your new self-image and to actually believe in yourself as a permanently slim person.

This is what change does. It changes you. Adopt it.

When a dieter is asked, “How are you doing?” the typical response is “I’ve lost so many pounds.” Well, an answer that would lean better on the long-term success wall of permanent change would be something like, “My attitude toward eating is changing in whole.” Learning to eat healthy foods and attaining a lean body is a process of gradual attainment.

Instead of measuring your scale weight, measure the progress of your weight loss goals in terms of behavior change.

For example, some things to measure besides body weight:

· Exercising when you really didn’t want to.

· Taking a bite of something, then putting your fork down because it’s “not worth it.”

· Tuning in to what you really want to eat, and it’s steamed vegetables not a cheeseburger.

· Leaving food on your plate when you are already comfortably full.

The process of shaping new attitudes is akin to a Bonsai tree.

Its beauty is created through patient pruning and the subtle directing of tiny shoots over a long periods of time. Likewise, you are reshaping your body. Start from within. The essence. Then direct the outward with patience.

Like water flowing into a polluted pond that circulates, that mixes, that gradually filters through the old slime, then clears it, the process of change is not immediate in nature. Neither is the change from night to morning.

Can you pinpoint the exact minute morning has come?

No. Nor should you expect your healthy life to start right now, because you merely voiced it so.

My journey was like this.

Though I may have written out my weight loss goals, my change into a healthy trim persona went through this natural process of change, swirling my attitudes within myself first, then trickling them out into my behaviors, one little battle at a time.

I acknowledged the smallest achievements.

The tiniest baby steps – the good feelings I got when I don’t feel bloated after a meal, the energy I felt when I would wake up in the morning recharged, the exuberance at taking a good walk during the day – these were my measurements of change.

If you are seeking the trim life, you are about to make big changes in your life concerning food, exercise, and attitude toward other people.

As with all undertakings, you need a bit of courage to get started. Each time you have a small success, it’ll reinforce the promise you made to your goal. It will encourage you to continue, and your momentum will increase as you get closer to your goal.

If you have many years of damaging eating patterns to overcome, give yourself time.

Ending a destructive relationship with food and substituting new, more successful behaviors is not easy. This is an evolutionary, lifetime change you are making. Be compassionate and understanding with yourself, just as you would be to a stranger who got into trouble but is now committed to the process of improving. Just so, you are committed to your weight loss goals.

Expect to have setbacks.

They are inevitable, and actually assist you in the learning process by making your new decisions even stronger.

I stopped for a couple of donuts at the local convenient store on the way home one evening, because I was exhausted and momentarily hungry from the long day. I would be home in 20 minutes, yet I stopped. Afterwards, I felt the thump in my stomach and that uncomfortable feeling of too much sugar. I won’t do that again (for awhile, anyway), because my choice to listen to my true self and not just my body’s immediate desires and resist those urges was just given a shot of resolve.

Once you acknowledge the fact that your new plan is designed for the rest of your life, small lapses are not a problem. Think of fallbacks as skirmishes of battle, having no bearing on the eventual outcome of the war.

It’s true that life isn’t fair.

Yes, some people can eat anything and everything and never gain an ounce. It would be nice if the world were different, and everyone was given the same deal at the start of the game, but that is not reality.

The key, bottom-line, pivotal truth, however, is that “Fatness Is a Reversible Condition.”

Unlike a terrible disease for which there is no cure, your brain, mouth, and fork can solve this problem forever. The underlying message here is to program your mind, in increments, that losing weight is an achievable goal. It can be done. It is a change process. Inside and, then, outside. And, YOU can do it. You can achieve your weight loss goals.