The Psychology Edit January ’23
Happy New Year!
And please don’t make any New Year’s resolutions… at least not until you take my crash course in how to resolve effectively.
Most New Year’s resolutions fail within a few weeks, many within days of being created, causing a feeling of frustration and failure. But don’t blame yourself because it’s not your fault…really! It’s the fault of the resolution. Almost everyone makes resolutions that are too vague, large, or impossible to achieve.
If you create resolutions using this one simple rule, you WILL succeed!
Make only one resolution and
make it tiny, specific, and measurable.
Here are a few examples:
NO: I am going to eat more healthily.
YES: I will set a year-end goal of limiting myself to two junk food snacks a day, calculated by looking at serving sizes. I will start by only eating three junk food snacks a day for the first three months, and then, starting in April, I will move to two junk food snacks a day. I will stick with that for the rest of the year.
NO: I will stop using social media/gaming apps
YES: I will set a year-end goal of cutting my screen time usage by fifty percent, which I will track using the screen time tracker on my phone. I will start by cutting my social media/gaming by ten percent in the first week and gradually reduce it a little more each week until I have reached my goal by month six. I will stick with that for the rest of the year. I will make a couple of clear ‘rules’ to help myself achieve this goal: power down my phone one hour before bed, put it in a drawer/another room for at least one hour a day; don’t hold it in my hand while talking to family members or friends.
NO: I am going to stop wasting money.
YES: By the end of February, I will make a budget for how much money I can afford to spend outside of I need to for bills and what I want to save. Starting in March, at the beginning of each week I will decide how I want to spend my discretionary funds for that week. I will work towards sticking with that plan for the rest of the year.
Now, you try it with your resolution. Good luck, let me know how it goes!
Thanks for reading!