How not to give up on new year resolutions in 2016

EACH year when the clock strikes midnight, we're often already planning to our our new year's resolutions into action.

Picture: Scott Powick Daily News

EACH year when the clock strikes midnight we're often already planning (if we're sober, or if we're not) to put our new year's resolutions into action.

But how often are these resolutions broken before the first week of January is out, or before the first day of the new year is over?

The common resolutions such as wanting to get fit, to save money, or eat healthier are always big on resolution lists, and often among those commonly broken.

Ipswich life coach Ronita Neal has been advising people how to make life changes successfully for the past 25 years and has shared her tips on making resolutions and sticking to them.

Ronita said while it would be great to set resolutions early in December, quite often the urge to make a great big resolution came in the midst of celebrations.

"The problem is seven seconds from midnight and maybe with a few drinks under your belt is not the best time to make a resolution about change," she said.

"Research shows that most people who do this will fail within the first few weeks.

"It is not useful to make a whole heap of impulsive resolutions that it will be impossible to keep and so you start the year as a failure."

The life coach said one aspect of setting a resolution that was likely to stick was to make "smart" goals - she described these as specific, measurable, achievable relevant and time bound.

"The process for making a decision to change needs to be started some time before the new year countdown," Ronita said.

"Change is hard and we need to make sure we have carefully considered what we want in the context of our life goals.

"It is a good idea to think about all the different areas of your life and where you would most benefit from making changes."

It might be your health, finances, social life, family life, learning, work, or leisure.

No matter what area of your life your resolution affects, Ronita said it was important to remember the changes you made in one area might affect another.

"In order to keep your resolutions and achieve your goals, you will need to keep up your motivation over a long period of time, but most of us give up too quickly," she said.

Ronita said the human brain resisted change.

This is supposed to make our lives easier to allow us to run on automatic, using habits most of the time.

Unfortunately when we want to change our habits, autopilot can make it really hard.

Ronita said this was most often when people said they just didn't have enough willpower.

According to Ronita, maintaining willpower to make a change could take up to three months of constantly making the new choice before the changes took place in your brain.

"If you make an unhelpful choice, just try to understand how that happened and how you might avoid doing it again," she said.

"When you are trying to break a habit your brain usually has a very short-term focus and will throw a "tantrum" to get what it wants (the old way) now.

"Just remind yourself why you are making the change (long-term goal) and don't go for the short-term pleasure."

Ronita said one serious problem with goal setting was people often chose something they couldn't control, such as losing a certain amount of weight in a certain number of weeks.

While it might be specific and measurable, the outcome is not entirely under your control.

Ronita said while we couldn't control how much weight we lost, we could control and measure how much effort we put in.

"Have you been for your walk, did you do your weights session at the gym, did you leave the yummy packet of chocolate biscuits in the shop, and have you avoided the deep fried chips this week?" she said.

"This continued effort, if at a sufficiently serious level, will eventually yield results such as being fitter, healthier, more active, more toned and happier."

Ronita said weight loss resolutioners should measure the effort they are putting in and the range of long-term benefits they are getting.

"If we depend on the numbers on the scales to keep us motivated, then the first time those numbers go up rather than down we are likely to stop trying," she said.

"Make up a chart to tick when you go for your walk or do your weights session.

"Set progressively harder targets and make sure there is no end point for habits you need to keep going (for example, lose five kilograms for a specific event) because then your brain will have no reason to continue with the
new habits."

Ronita suggested taking a look over what you learned this year about how you go about making change.

"It's better to make the first step something you can actually accomplish.

"You can always review these in three months and make things a bit more challenging once you have the good habit in place," she said.

"If you are confident and are working on bigger work goals make sure you still cut them down into smaller steps. Measure, reward ... and review frequently."

Ronita's new year's resolution tips appeared in our special Christmas edition of City Pride magazine. Look out for the next edition as it launches under the new name QTMagazine in early 2016.