It’s coming to that time of year where some of us will sit down and devise resolutions for the New Year. Many people resolve to get healthier, exercise more or lose weight etc. I was wondering how quickly some people quit on their intentions and how many stick to their resolutions.

I have done some research on the topic of resolutions and this is some of what I discovered:

  • A ComRes poll for Bupa in November 2015 suggested 32% of Britons planned to make a New Year resolution.
  • A 2015 You Gov poll claimed 35% planned to lose weight, 33% wanted to get fitter and 31% wanted to eat more healthily. Others included seeing more of friends and family (14%) or getting a better work-life balance (12%).
  • In the ComRes poll 41% admitted to breaking their last resolution, 63% of respondents admitted to having broken one in the past and the majority of these (66%) admitted to doing so within just one month.
  • According to the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association, 12% of new gym memberships start in January and a high proportion of gym income is from members who sign up to lengthy contracts and then attend irregularly, although the exact amount is unclear.
  • Regular gym goers are in the minority with only one in 10 people in England going at least once a month, according to Sport England.

People failing to follow through on their intentions can be put down to a variety of factors. It could be lack of self-discipline, putting others needs before their own, procrastination, not getting clear on the motivation for the goal and not planning how they will celebrate/reward themselves when the goal is successfully achieved.

Another reason that people don’t stick to their resolutions is that they have too many. Sometimes less is more! For instance becoming healthier can require many behavioural changes rather than the occasional trip to the gym.

A step by step approach to changing your lifestyle will prove to be more effective. Choosing to master one behavioural change at a time and then moving onto another, rather than seeking to make a whole lot of changes at once is likely to be more effective. This theory ties in with the view that it takes 21 days to break a habit and between 25 and 28 days to create a new one.

So my suggestion is to adopt a different approach to New Year resolutions in 2017.How about viewing 2017 as a One year transformation? Your life can be transformed one month at a time. You can do this by having 12 different monthly resolutions. You can decide at the start of each month what you would like to focus on that month in an effort to upgrade your life.

I suggest that you only take on a new monthly resolution if you feel you have successfully mastered and integrated new behaviours and habits from previous months. Imagine how your life will be in 12 months if you successfully fulfil your commitment to this new way of following through on resolutions.

This week why not take some time out to reflect and consider if monthly resolutions will work for you. If so, decide what will be your first monthly resolution/area for focus in January.

This week’s quotation:

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” Jim Rohn

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