Are you looking to eat healthier, get more sleep, exercise more often, lose body fat, save more money, spend more time with family, quit smoking, travel more often, or get a new job in the New Year?
These are a few of the most common New Year’s resolutions people take on each year. In fact, about 45 percent of us make some kind of resolution each year, according to a study at the University of Scranton, Journal of Clinical Psychology. Even if you aren’t starting 2016 with a resolution, you still may want to change your habits or your lifestyle so that you can live the life you want.
Creating New, Long-Lasting Habits to Improve your Life
We encourage this kind of optimism and efforts to create meaningful, positive change in your life. As a result, we’ve compiled 3 tips to help you find lasting behavior change for a more fruitful life.
Tip #1: Don’t rush goal-setting and be sure you know your process for change.
It’s easy to think of all the things we might want to change, but don’t forget the importance of giving consideration to what’s realistic and feasible with your new goal.
Ever heard of creating a SMART goal? Maybe you’ve heard of it at work or in school, but there is value in implementing a goal that is aligned with the SMART framework. You can also use any similar framework; the intention is to make sure your goals are supported by motivation, that they have meaning, and that they are measurable.
SMART goals include the following:
· Specific: can you answer what you want to achieve in the area of your life you are looking to change?
· Meaningful: can you say with confidence this is a meaningful goal to you?
· Action-oriented: what are the steps you will take to achieve lasting change? Aim for a system or method you can repeat.
· Realistic: is your goal feasible, and how do you know?
· Timely: do you have a timeframe or specific time when you want to achieve your goal? When applicable, do you know how you can track your progress against this timeline? What feedback or metrics will help you know you have the right process in place?
Creating a SMART goal helps you create an action-oriented goal and plan. This helps bring clarity—near and long-term—to where you need to start, and where you want to be. Consider thinking of your goal in a bite-sized way: what can you do today so that in several months, this will be possible?
Sometimes this kind of mindset requires us to “reverse-engineer” our goal, where we start with our objective, and work back to where we are at present. Whatever plan you create, you want an understanding on the behaviors and the process needed to create that change.
Tip #2: Reflect on your successes and your failures...and then adjust accordingly.
When it comes to changing your daily habits, you can learn just as much from your successes as your ongoing barriers to positive habit formation.
For example, if your goal is to consistently exercise 3-4 times per week, notice what keeps you from achieving that habit (or that outcome). Of course, this takes a lot of honesty with yourself!
A bit of introspection might tell you that you don’t make it to the gym if you don’t go in the morning. That might suggest that you want to dedicate time in the morning to go to the gym. In this example, you would also consider why you tend to neglect your workout schedule when you plan to workout after work. Do you just forget altogether? Are you tired after a long day at work? Is your favorite class not available after work? Said another way, consider why that “barrier” is ruining your good intentions.
Continuing with our example, we see that for many people, they have good intentions on going to the gym after work, but once they drive home, they never seem to make it to the gym, as intended. But what if you were to bring your workout clothes to work and then head directly to the gym after work? This way, you would no longer be dependent on your mood once you drive home from work. You also eliminate other potential excuses or barriers (distraction, family, etc.) that might come your way if you don’t go straight to the gym from work.
By slightly changing your normal way of doing things, you might find you have more success and you eliminate temptations to act in ways that aren’t aligned with your goals. As this example shows, part of creating the habits you want is tweaking daily activities to avoid whatever “barriers” you have. Many times people think that only the most “disciplined” people can achieve goals and lasting change, but that’s just not true. Focus on the process, not just the end goal.
Tip #3: Share your goals with others.
Sometimes we like to think we can do things on our own, and we can even take a bit of pride in being self-sufficient. But most lasting change and new habit formation requires support and help from other people—whether that be from family members or friends or professionals that can help guide us. This feedback and reinforcement is crucial in creating new habits.
Ask yourself: will you share your objectives with others, and if so, who is best to share these goals with? Also consider whether telling other people will help you to really be “all in” with the change you want to see in yourself. If it will, then by all means, tell people so that you can be even further committed to your goals.
When we do share our goals with others, it can help us keep ourselves accountable. When we make sure others know our motivations and thought behind changing our lives for the better, other people can be more equipped to support us along the way. We know there will be obstacles and our enthusiasm towards meeting our goals may waver; it is how we set ourselves up to overcome those obstacles, and how we act after we have a setback that matters.
Create the Habits You Want—Not Just the Goals or Resolutions You Want
All of these tips recognize that goals can be a great place for us to start, but a serious plan with a proven process and a system for support help us once the newness of a resolution wears off.
The focus is on changing habits, including the environment that triggers so many of those habits.
We have this focus so that we can act in ways that are consistent with the habits that put us on the path to our goals. Changing ourselves for the better and resolving to grow ourselves is not something that has to happen at the beginning of the year. These tips are ways we can think and approach positive behavior change whenever we are ready and motivated to do so.
While you may be looking to create a new you in the new year, have you noticed some of the changes around CRC? We have a new website and a revamped Facebook page. We also have new service offerings that include physical therapy and Reiki. Be sure to ask us about how we can partner with you in the New Year to create a healthier life. Let us know if you are interested in coming in for chiropractic, massage, sports injury, nutrition counseling, Reiki & more. See our list of services here.
References/Further Reading
http://topachievement.com/smart.html
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2015/01/08/smart-goals-can-sometimes-be-dumb/
