If this
sounds like you, you’re not alone. Research shows four out of five New Year’s resolutions (81%) will be
abandoned by mid-January. In fact, fitness app Strava found the majority of users had
given up on their New Year’s resolutions by January 19 (aka national “Quitter’s
Day”).
Here's something that may surprise you, however. Most resolutions don’t fail due
to lack of willpower. They fail because we set goals that are way too
ambitious. If you haven’t run a quarter mile since junior high
school gym class, don’t resolve to run a marathon within six months. You might
be able to pull that off in the movies, but in real life, you’re just setting
yourself up for disappointment, injury and an unhealthy relapse.
However, if you start with 20 minutes of walking a day with a goal of
completing a 5K run in six months, your odds of success go up exponentially.
And from there, you can talk about completing a 10K or half-marathon before
year-end with even more ambitious goals in 2027.
Whether
we’re talking about fitness, finances, weight loss or relationships, behavior
modification is hard. That’s why it’s so important to “test drive” your
resolutions for a month or two before making a full commitment. This honeymoon
period gives you time to see how much you can really handle and make course
corrections along the way. If life is too hectic to start your test drive now,
move the test drive to January with the goal of setting your 2026 resolutions
in February.
Here are four tips for making the test-drive period even more effective:
1. Be
SMART. New Year’s resolutions are a form of behavior modification. To
make this changing mindset stick, you want to be SMART (Specific,
Measurable, Actionable, Realistic and Time Specific).
Dan McMahon, managing
partner of Integrated Growth Advisors, is a former football tight-end and no
stranger to the ups and downs of weight change. A few weeks before
Thanksgiving, Dan told me about his audacious goal to lose 40 pounds by May 1, 2026.
Dropping 40 pounds may sound like a lot – especially when starting right before
the Holidays -- but that works out to less than seven pounds per month or less
than two pounds per week. Not a huge sacrifice and with the gradual approach,
he’ll have plenty of time to make mid-course corrections.
In fact,
without reducing his overall calories, Dan lost 18 pounds in the first two
weeks of his journey. No pills or magic formulas here. He simply reduced the
amount of carbs he was eating by about 90% and consumed more protein and fat to
stay off hunger. He has also maintained his four-day-per-week exercise routine
throughout the process.
While it
might be tempting for Dan to get to his 40-pound weight loss goal way ahead of
schedule, Dan’s sticking to the timetable, so he doesn’t peak too early and
gain all the weight back. He told me the other day: “The easy pounds have been
shed – mostly water weight and beer weight. Now the real work begins and I’m
not going to rush it.”
2. Be
consistent. As
the old saying goes: “Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start
of a new habit. Don’t make excuses. Find a way to do the work to the best of
your ability and don’t beat yourself up when you have an off-day or a cheat
day. Just keep making a little progress every day and move the ball down the
field one yard at a time. My post Consistency Is Not Boring has more.
3. Turn resolutions into ingrained habits to make them more relatable. For example:
- Resolution: Quit smoking
vs. Ingrained Habit: Stop smoking that one cigarette you have every
morning after breakfast.
- Resolution: Eat healthy food
vs. Ingrained Habit: Start substituting that one daily morning pastry
for a banana.
- Resolution: Lose weight
vs. Ingrained Habit: Every evening after work, go for a two to
three-minute run or walk around the block.
- Resolution: Manage stress
vs. Ingrained Habit: Meditate for two to three minutes every morning
after you wake up.
- Resolution: Improve finances
vs. Ingrained Habit: Save an extra 2 percent of each paycheck and put
half into my 401(k)s low-cost index fund and the other half into a
high-yield savings account at your bank.
*** For
more on making resolutions habit forming, see Sahil Bloom’s 30 for 30 Challenge.
4.
Have an accountability partner. As the old saying goes, “it’s easier to let down
yourself than it is to let down someone you trust.” Share your resolution with
a person you can trust who won’t let you make excuses or talk you out of
striving toward your goal.
Conclusion
Eating an
entire elephant is impossible. But taking it one bite at a time makes a
daunting challenge seem manageable. Tweak your resolutions all year long (See
Step 4) and don’t beat yourself up for falling short. Instead of throwing in
the towel, dust yourself, get back on the horse and set more realistic goals
for the remainder of 2023.
As Napolean
Hill famously said: “A goal is just a dream with a deadline.” Take your goals for a test drive before
diving in. Come MLK Day you’ll be glad you did.
How do you
plan to stick to your resolutions in 2026? I’d love to hear from you.
#resolutions, #selfimprovement, #dedication,
#goalsetting, #30for30
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