Do you keep your New Year’s resolutions? Probably not. A 1972 study that looked at whether people succeeded with their New Year’s resolutions or not found that 25 percent of participants had abandoned their resolutions after 15 weeks. In a similar 1989 study, that number had gone down to only one week!
The underlying issue is that our goals and expectations are unrealistic. As we never get anywhere near them, we get fed up and give up.
So how can you ensure you set more realistic expectations? Here are a few simple rules:
- First of all, don’t think that change is easy. Accept from the start that reaching your goal will be tough. This is especially important if your goal involves giving up bad habits, like giving up smoking. These habits are often far deeper ingrained in our behavior than we think; you’ll have a greater chance of succeeding if you simply accept that it’s going to be hard.
- Secondly, don’t create a fixed deadline to reach your goal. It’s good to have an approximate idea of when you would like to get your result, but don’t make it an all-or-nothing situation. Some programs advocate losing a bad habit in 21 days, but if it takes you 101 days, that’s also fine. All that matters is picking a rough time scale that you feel comfortable with.
- Finally, don’t think achieving your goal will make your life suddenly wonderful. Losing ten pounds, often amounts to just that – some weight loss. Don’t expect to also get a promotion and a new lover.
By following these steps, it will be easier for you to stick to your plan in the long haul without being disappointed.
This brings us to another feature of the mentally strong, namely that they recognize that progress is not always immediately recognizable. Sometimes improvements are well-hidden, and sometimes they even look like steps backward.
For example, the author once worked with parents of young children, teaching them how to manage temper tantrums. The standard advice was to studiously ignore the kids when they threw themselves on the ground and started howling and kicking.
Many parents initially complained. They said the tantrums were getting worse, as the children were screaming louder, making more of a fuss. Of course, the children were simply upping the ante. Angry at being ignored, they were trying their best to get their parents to cave in to their will. But if the parents persisted in ignoring them, the tantrums inevitably improved.
What this example shows is that it’s important to be patient, stick to your goal and keep working at it, even when you’re not seeing any progress at a given moment.
