It’s just over two weeks into
January and twenty-five percent of us have already abandoned our New
Year’s resolutions.
We start January
with great intentions. We resolve to lose weight, eat more healthily,
exercise more, gain control over our finances or to generally have a
more positive outlook. Some of us have no problem keeping their
resolutions.
According to researcher
John Norcross, a study
published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, about 50 percent
of people will make a resolution every New Year.
But for many of us,
shortly after the New Year, a week or two or even a month in, we
begin to slide back into our old ways, eventually completely
forgetting about our resolutions.
Why do so many people
have problems succeeding in following through?
Researchers have
studied this behaviour to try to find the reason. Is it simply because
people are weak-willed? Or are they just lazy?
Resolutions are a way
of motivating yourself to change a habit. But if you aren’t ready
to actually change your habit, especially a bad habit, the failure
rate will be high. Another reason can be that we set unrealistic
expectations and goals when we make our resolution.
Psychology professor
Peter Herman calls it “the ‘false
hope syndrome’, which means the resolution is significantly
unrealistic and out of alignment with the person's internal view of
themselves.” In other words, if you don’t really believe you can
achieve your goal, then the positive affirmations won’t work.
Another aspect of
failed resolutions comes from how you think it will change your
entire life. You might think that losing weight or reducing your
debts will change your life and when it doesn’t you become
discouraged and go back to your old behaviours.
A resolution is
basically a goal to change something. And in order to change you have
to work at it and change your way of thinking about it.
In the next few blog posts, you'll
find out why you fail at your resolutions, and discover some ways to get back on
track. You’ll also discover ways to incorporate healthy eating and
exercise into your daily lifestyle.
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