Traditionally, many good resolutions for the new year are made: You want to quit smoking, go to the gym every day, eat healthier, learn more or work more productively, scold your children less or simply become a better person. However, these plans are often shaped by societal paradigms that in many cases do not align with personal priorities and goals.
Year after year – New Year's resolutions often have a short lifespan
All the good resolutions already exist; you have known them for years and every time you pick from the list of good resolutions the one that seems most urgent to you. Right on January 2nd – after you have been able to recover from the long New Year's Eve night the day before – you get started. Highly motivated, you go to the next gym, where you first work out and then are proud that you finally made it to exercise and that the new year will now be much healthier. Usually, this enthusiasm lasts for a few days or maybe even weeks, until everyday life catches up with the routines you have acquired over the years. In the end, in many cases, the good resolutions are left behind. But why do we fail so often, and what solutions are there?
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Reason #1: Societal Norms
The good resolutions are not your own, but were set by society. The classic list of good New Year's changes includes many things that sound nice in a pipe dream, but in fact lack a personal connection. Do I want to lose weight, look muscular and beautiful, because I see people in the media who represent a societal ideal? Or is it really about goals that I pursue for personal reasons and priorities? This should actually be reflected on more closely in the first place.
If social contacts are at the top of the list for someone and it is important for that person's well-being to always have an after-work beer with colleagues or go together to the kebab shop next door at lunchtime, then the chance is relatively small that this person will give healthy eating a high priority in the long term. Someone else, on the other hand, ranks health at the top or second-top priority and social contacts come after that. In this case, the personal connection is much closer to the goal of healthy eating.
The solution here is therefore first to be honest with yourself and determine where your priorities lie, and then to say goodbye to illusions and societal paradigms. This way, realistic resolutions can be set.
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Reason #2: The Why is Missing
Closely connected to the first point is the why, which many are often not aware of when they devote themselves to the list of good resolutions. Why do you want to lose weight? Why do you want to quit smoking? Why do you want to achieve more or learn more? Here it also quickly becomes clear whether the personal values of #1 actually correspond to your own priorities. If sufficient time with friends, free weekends, and finishing work on time are important to someone, then it will be difficult to find the why for more performance at work. In many cases, however, you can establish the link to personal goals precisely by asking about the motivations:
Suppose the good New Year's resolution you have chosen focuses on a healthy diet with more exercise. If you now look for the why, it is not enough to make up a "I want to live healthier" out of thin air. Much more should be determined, what concrete benefits arise from the changes. These must absolutely be linked to the values that are most important to you. If family is at the top of the list, then you can say you want to grow old with your children, be able to teach them sports, be a role model, and remain attractive to your partner. For someone, the why may be to be attractive in order to find a partner at all. For someone else, career is the most important thing. In this case, a healthy lifestyle can be linked to more performance and concentration at work.
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Reason #3: Concrete Long-Term and Short-Term Goals are Missing
Good resolutions should not be confused with tangible goals. While resolutions can be equated with good deeds, a goal is about what you actually want to achieve. The goals must be measurable and realistic. If someone wants to be fitter and healthier, it is not enough to say "in half a year I want to feel better," but means such as body fat measurements, blood values at the doctor, or a sports goal should make the whole thing reliably, validly, and objectively measurable. If someone wants to achieve more at work, they should also adhere to these criteria. With self-employment, this can be measured, for example, in the form of financial profit or new customers.
In addition, there is the differentiation between short-term and long-term goals. It is best to first set the long-term goal, which initially seems very far away and perhaps still somewhat unrealistic. You could say to yourself "in one year I want to go from 20% to 10% body fat" or "in one year my company will have made twice as much profit as the previous year". Then you can set small sub-goals: "In one month I will have 1% less body fat" or "in one month I will make X amount of profit".
It is also always important to set exact dates, because this makes the goals even more binding.
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Reason #4: The Implementation Plan is Missing – The Necessary To-Dos Were Not Determined
People often say they know they have to do something for their goals. Nevertheless, they do not act according to this principle. In many cases, this is because good planning is missing. "If you're fail to plan you plan to fail". This quote by Benjamin Franklin explains exactly what happens; without planning things optimally, you are practically planning to fail unconsciously.
A good plan contains the right to-dos for the personal goal. These should also be as concrete as possible. Someone who wants to become slimmer and fitter can, for example, write the following to-dos on their list:
1. I go to sports 3x a week!
2. I don't eat sugar anymore!
3. I eat vegetables 3x a day!
The list can of course go on, but here too it makes sense to set new to-dos step by step for the smaller sub-goals. With too many to-dos, you will be overwhelmed and motivation will quickly fade. This is how you achieve sustainable changes in routines, so that over time less discipline is required and many things simply run automatically.
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Reason #5: The Resolutions Are Only Set Because of the Turn of the Year
The timing is often chosen for the wrong reasons. If the goal or resolution arises for the wrong reasons, as described above, then the chance is high that it is a short-term thing that quickly gets lost in the daily routine. However, if the goal has been on the personal list for a long time, there is nothing against tackling it as a New Year's resolution. Nevertheless, all the other points that have already been discussed should be considered. Perhaps you have already dealt with a goal in the last few months and something will change in your own life in January anyway, then a fresh start with good resolutions in the form of concrete goals is definitely recommended. However, a goal can also be set at any time during the year and realized with the necessary to-dos.
Conclusion: New Year's resolutions can be better visualized and realized as personal goals
Resolutions for the new year only make sense if they meet certain criteria: On the one hand, they must be formulated as individually tailored goals that actually correspond to the values that have a high priority for you. These goals should be clearly determined with measurable values. On the other hand, the why must be consciously noted and repeatedly recalled, so that the necessary to-dos are actually carried out. A good resolution should not be set because of societal norms or because of the turn of the year, but should be well thought out in the long term and broken down into small, realistic sub-goals. And finally: Take action every day!