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The Present
• Have a strong initial
commitment to make a
change.
• Have coping strategies to deal
with problems that come up.
• Keep track of your progress.
The more monitoring you
do and feedback you get, the
better you will do.
Finding tips on how to
succeed with resolutions is
easy with the Internet. The site
psychcentral.com is one place to
start, as is About.com. The latter
site, for example, said careful
examination of your motivation
to change is probably the top tip,
even above setting realistic goal.
That site also says a person
needs to “Allow for imperfection.
No one is exactly on target all the
time. In fact you should expect to
falter every now and then. If you
give in to temptation, do not use
this as an excuse to abandon the
whole program. Learn from your
mistake and move on.”
Proactive.com says a
compilation of studies suggest
40 percent to 45 percent of all
American adults make one or
more New Year’s resolution each
year. Of those, 75 percent will
have kept the resolution through
the first week, 71 percent past
two week, 64 percent through
one month and only 46 percent
beyond six months.
That site also points out,
however, that making resolutions
is useful. “People who explicitly
make resolutions are 10 times
more likely to attain their goals
than people who don’t explicitly
make resolutions,” it said.
That makes sense, doesn’t it?
Yes it does, said Timothy Drew,
a Peoria psychologist, because
there is a difference between a
person who simply desires to
do something and one who, in
resolving to do something, puts
together a plan to do it.
“A person who actually
resolves to lose weight and get
more fit and then puts together
a plan to reach a reasonable and
attainable goal is far more likely
to succeed than the person who
just goes and buys the latest
workout video and expects that
to do the trick. So yes, it makes
practical sense,” Drew said.
“I may desire lots of things but
I am far less likely to get them
without a real plan to get them,”
he added.
Drew said people who are
unhappy or unsatisfied with
their lives or certain aspects of
their lives are more likely to
make resolutions than those who
consider their lives peachy.
But if there is a correlation
between happiness and making
New Year’s resolutions, isn’t
making them and failing to keep
them likely to make unhappy
people more unhappy, perhaps
depressed?
“That is absolutely true,
because they have failed to satisfy
their desires or their needs,”
Drew said.
There is a difference, he added,
between desire and need, and the
person who fails to satisfy a basic
need is likely going to feel worse
about it than one who cannot
satisfy a desire.
“Nobody wants it put on
their headstone that ‘He made
budget’ or ‘He wishes he’d spent
more time at the office.’ They
want ‘husband’ or ‘father.’ That
is a basic need, to belong and
be loved. But while there is a
difference between desire and
need, they often go hand-in-
hand,” Drew said.
An article on WebMD.com
had the headline: “Try giving
resolutions a rest and just do
your best.” It further suggested
people make one last resolution;
that being to make no more
resolutions.
It is hard to argue with that
logic, said Drew.
“That is simply saying that
making our need to make
a change into a New Year’s
resolution is putting ourselves
under undue pressure. It doubles
the likelihood of failure. Who
really says there is something
magical about Jan. 1 other than it
is somebody’s tradition? Pick any
other day of the year — Feb. 1,
May 1 or Oct. 21 — any day you
want to start your plan. A day
that has no other significance to
it than that is the day you should
choose to stop smoking or start
your diet or whatever,” he said.
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thePeorian.com