Time flies. One more year. One more opportunity to live the kind of life you’ve been wanting to live. Sometimes the resolutions we make for the new year are pretty much the same as those in the previous year. Sometimes the list is longer. The resolve is strong. But somewhere at the back of our mind is the fear that like in the previous year, the momentum we pick up in the beginning of the year will be lost even before February arrives.
Here are some simple tips to make sure that doesn’t happen. It’s a list I’ve compiled on the basis of the successes, failures and struggles in habit formation I’ve seen in coaching clients over the years.
1) Keep the number of resolutions to a bare minimum
Research shows that your success in forming new habits is INVERSELY proportional to the number of new habits you decide to start at one go. If you want to start your morning walks AND increase daily water consumption AND meditate every day AND read a book for 15 minutes a day AND call up your parents every week AND …. there’s a good chance that either you’ll never get down to doing any of these or if you do, you’ll drop each of these over time.
A good rule of thumb is to pick 2 to 3 habits and stick to just these till they actually become part of your routine effortlessly, and then take on some more.
Which habits to pick? Use the 80:20 rule, the Pareto principle. Of the ten habits you “wish” to form, there will be two which will have the maximum impact on your well-being. They’re the ones to go after.
2) Start small
Whatever habits you pick up, make sure you make it easy for yourself to successfully do them. If you’ve not been exercizing for most of the last year, committing to a 10 minute walk is better than committing to a 45 minute workout at the gym. 5 minutes of meditation every day is more likely to happen than 45 minutes of meditation thrice a week.
Remember one infinitesimally small action is way more powerful than an ambitious and big intention. However small the action is, everytime you do it, you are subconsciously forming a “success pattern” i.e. you are getting used to success. It’s a feel good emotion that will keep you motivated to keep going.
3) Repetition is key
Forming habits is all about programming the mind. We have a place called the Basal Ganglia in our brain that “remembers” all that we do without thinking, that is out of habit. The key to insert stuff into the Basal Ganglia is repetition. The longer and more consistently you repeat an action, the more it gets embedded in this memory.
If you go for a walk for say a ridiculously low 5 minutes a day for 85 days out of 90 days, the impact on your heath may not be that much, but the programming of your mind will be phenomenal. You can always scale up the effort over a period of time once the base habit is formed.
Most of us are impatient. We want to do too many things with too much intensity in too short a time. Guilt from inaction in the past is a huge factor that drives this. You can’t expect much good to come out if the driving factor is guilt.
4) What’s the “Why”?
All habits are a means to an end. Link each habit to a goal. And then ask “Why is this goal important to me?” Even better if you can associate the goal with an emotion – then we’re talking of an “Emotional WHY”. Some examples:
– I want to exercize everyday because I want to be there for my kids even in my old age.
– I want to meditate everyday because my calmness helps me listen better and become a better leader and that’s important to me.
5) Keep the game is existence
It’s simple. What gets measured, gets done. The game is more interesting when progress is measured. Imagine a professional game of cricket or football without anyone keeping score. It’s not even half the fun!
When you measure your efforts and track them on a daily basis, you’ll feel good about yourself. To know that you went to the gym 18 out of 30 days is very useful. Because you know the numbers, you can feel good about the 18 days that you did go to the gym. If you hadn’t tracked this you’re more likely to focus on and feel frustrated about the days you didn’t show up at the gym.
Life is all about progress. You don’t have to have a 30 on 30 score to feel successful. If in January you exercized 5 times and in February you took that number to 7, that’s a 40% improvement! You won’t know this unless you’ve measured the effort in the first place.
6) Get back on track
It’s normal, rather it’s human to falter. You may break your resolution sometime in the coming few days or weeks or months. Don’t beat yourself over it. Be gentle on yourself, forgive yourself and start all over again.
New Year’s Day is just a convenient starting point – an easy to remember date. Every single day is really the first day of the rest of your life. If you have to start all over again, every single day, so be it. Resolutions are about a resolve to never give up. Persistence is an indispensable attitude to winning in any game.
7) Become accountable to someone
If possible, get yourself a buddy, a partner to whom you are accountable. Report your progress regularly to him/her. You keep an eye on your buddy and ask the buddy to keep an eye on you.
Accountability works wonders. As a Coach one of the main reasons I am able to help clients create results is because I hold them accountable to me. When you know someone is going to ask you “Did you do it”, you’re more likely to do something than if you were not accountable to anyone.
———————————————————-
Make this New Year different. Don’t take on too many things at one go. But whatever you commit to, make sure you keep your word. Make your word sacred. Don’t say anything that you won’t do and if you say the word, do what you said you would. Remember, your word creates your world.
One last thing, whether you read this today (New Year’s Day) or some day in the future, if you’ve taken a decision to do something new from today, remember the decision is meaningless unless it is backed by action.
For example, if you’ve taken a decision to exercize for 5 minutes everyday, here are two things you should do:
a) Declare your intention to someone. Tell a family member or a friend/colleague (whoever is closest to you right now) about your intention. By publicly proclaiming your intention you will bring more seriousness to the decision.
b) Take action NOW. Whether you are at home or in office take a 5 minute break and go for a walk NOW. Your action is the ultimate proof that you are serious about the decision. Do not underestimate the power of inertia. Going for a 5 minute walk is NOT EASY. Don’t take my word for it. Try and do it now. Either you will become aware of how strong the inertia is or if you DO end up doing the 5 minute walk, you will realize how powerful YOU ARE!
Wish you a happy, productive and successful new year!