By now, New Year’s resolutions are fading into the sunset. Our intention to lose 5 pounds, start a fitness program, cut back on our drinking, is a distant memory. How come?
Timing for changing a habit is important. We have to focus on our goal and our plan and make it a priority. Other challenges get in the way — family problems, work stress, health issues, or even frozen pipes make it difficult to stay on track. These trials divert mental and physical energy from our intention. Just because it’s the new year doesn’t mean our plate isn’t already full. Perhaps it just wasn’t a good time to start a new program. It’s best to start working on changing your habits when you have fewer distractions.
What’s our motivation for change? Do we want to quit smoking or lose weight because our partner wants us to? Or have we decided from our toes to our nose that we’re ready for change? To sustain a plan for change we need to have decided, from the inside out, that this is important to us.
Starting a new program is the easiest part of changing a habit. Signing up at a gym doesn’t take much effort. Downloading a weight loss app is quick and simple. Signing up for a yoga class takes a minute. The bigger challenge is sustaining a program over the long haul. Changing a habit takes a simple intention, but sustaining effort in the midst of everyday life takes a different set of skills.
So, how do we sustain habit change efforts?
Make sure your plan is realistic. All-or-nothing plans are doomed for failure. Joe plans to go to his new health club five days a week. At the start of the New Year, he caught a cold and only went once last week. The next week, he had a new work assignment and went to the gym twice. He’s already disappointed in himself. Instead, it’s better to start out with low expectations, which you’re likely to exceed. Success breeds success. Failure breeds disappointment.
Remind yourself why this change is important to you. Write your intention on a note card and tape it on your bathroom mirror. You’ll be reminded of your goal when you wake up in the morning and when you go to sleep at night. Underneath your objective, list several reasons why it’s important to you. This will help you remember why you want to make a change when the going gets tough.
Expect slips. Anticipate that you’ll go off your diet, miss gym sessions, or fall off your new habit horse. Don’t expect perfection. Instead, be generous with yourself and get back on the horse when you fall off.
Adopt a long-term perspective. During the pandemic, like many others, I gained ten pounds. All that comfort food added up. I decided to take six months to lose the weight I gained. Taking a longer-term approach helped me stay on a realistic track that I could sustain. Making sustainable change takes a longer view.
Find ways of monitoring progress. When I was on my post-pandemic weight loss journey, I weighed myself every day. That way, if I started to return to my old ways, the scale would keep me honest. Keeping track of your behavior helps you stay accountable to yourself.
We all need a cheerleader. Enlist the encouragement of a friend, family member, or co-worker who gets out the pom poms and cheers you on. There is a reason sports teams have cheer squads. We need one, too.
Be patient and persistent. Habit change takes time. Don’t be in a rush. And when the going gets tough, persist.
Paul Schoenfeld is a clinical psychologist at The Everett Clinic. His Family Talk blog can be found at www. everettclinic.com/ healthwellness-library.html.
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