How do we move forward from making a promise – a “resolution” – to taking consistent action?
This is the important question because it is action, taken consistently over time, that leads forward to creating that change we envision.
This is also a tricky question to answer, and following through with it is not easy.
Yet, it is completely possible to follow through with your New Year’s Resolutions this year if only you take the necessary steps.
These steps – they are not a simple and linear pathway that guarantees you results.
Still, they can serve you along your journey if you are willing to call upon them as you go.
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Step 1: Be mindful of the first dopamine hit
When we set a goal and make a promise to ourselves:
- I will do this
- I will stop doing that
- I will become that person I envision
When we do this, it feels good!
When we do this, we get a hit of dopamine and our minds are in a reward state.
It feels good to make a promise to ourselves – to envision that better future as we tell ourselves we will create it.
Because it feels good, it is often common to go through life making such promises.
But the important question is, do you actually follow through?
Do you ever take the action that you promised yourself you would, or do you go through life jumping from one initial dopamine hit to another?
New Year’s resolutions are popular because they make us feel good. This can be used to your benefit as it helps you take the first big step to creating that positive change you envision.
Or, it may become a cycle to nowhere as you make promise after promise, year after year, never really creating that change you envision.
Let’s change things this year, shall we?
Step 1: Be mindful of the initial dopamine hit. Feel into it as you are motivated to take the first steps here at the beginning of the New Year.
Then, as that first hit fades, be prepared to continue to take steps forward.
Step 2: Take smaller steps
Oftentimes when we make a New Year’s resolution, our imaginations far exceed our capabilities – at least, as far as they go in what can be accomplished in a matter of days or weeks.
But real change takes time.
- It takes time to lose weight in a healthy and sustainable fashion.
- It takes time to adapt your diet to one that is based on healthier foods.
- It takes time to remove unhealthy foods from your diet..
- It takes time to get fit.
- etc.
You may have a perfect vision for how you will behave this January, and you may have high expectations for the results this will create.
But for the vast majority of us, our journeys to achieving our health goals are far from perfect.
Because of this, it helps to see your steps forward in smaller steps.
Think you’ve broken it down enough?
Perhaps you’ll find that that small step you were taking is actually much larger, and it’s important that you recognize it as such because this means it may take much longer.
Your small step may take you the next three months, and that’s okay. As long as you keep moving forward then you will get there.
Practice: Having trouble taking that next step?
Break it down into smaller steps. Make the steps easier.
If you still can’t do it, break them down into steps so easy you couldn’t possibly miss them!
Bigger steps will get you there faster, but only if you can actually take them!
Embrace the big steps; embrace the small steps. They are all moving you forward.
Step 3: Forgive “Failures”
Now we ask an important question: what happens when your perfect vision falls apart?
- What happens when you miss a workout after telling yourself you will make every single one?
- What happens when you slip up on what you told yourself you would / would not eat?
Do you tell yourself you fell off the wagon, get frustrated, and quit?
Or do you recognize it as a stumble, get back on your feet, and keep moving forward?
It’s a cliche to say the following, but as it has serious truth to it, I’ll risk placing it here:
On your journey to achieving your big goals, you have not failed unless you say it is so.
If you call it a failure, then it becomes one.
If you call it a stumble, examine the reasons for it, learn from it, and continue moving forward, then whatever just happened became a valuable step.
Miss your physical activity today? Or perhaps you slipped up making that nourishing meal?
- No problem, ask yourself why?
- Have a good reason – learn from it
- Have a bad reason (laziness, perhaps) – then forgive yourself and get back on your feet tomorrow
The big idea here is that calling something a failure is an excuse to quit on yourself and your resolutions. There is no failure unless you call it so.
Instead, call it a mistake or a misstep, or whatever term is useful to you.
Learn from it and get back on your feet.
Then keep moving forward.
#ChasingUpwardSlopes
As you’ve read through these steps, you’ve probably noticed a theme: the idea is to always keep moving forward.
- Your goal was too big and you didn’t achieve it? No problem. Break it down, take the steps that you are able to take, and keep moving forward.
- Feel like a failure because you messed up. No problem! Recognize what happened, forgive what needs to be forgiven, pick your head up, and keep moving forward.
- Think you’ve done a good job and are ready for the reward? Awesome! Enjoy it! Relish in. Bathe it in. Then pick your head up, set your new vision, and keep moving forward.
Life is dynamic and non-linear. The point is never to achieve a goal, call it good, and live happily ever after.
Instead, we set our sights on what we believe will enrich our lives, we do what needs to be done to get there, we fall over and over again, and we learn a hell of a lot on the way there.
Sometimes we achieve the goal.
Occasionally the hard work pays off and we get to stand on top of the peak dancing in the glow of a well-deserved reward.
Other times, we ended up someplace else.
And, if I’ve learned anything in life, it is this:
That achieving a goal makes me feel fantastic, but it is only for one fleeting moment.
But the times I have embraced the journey fully, immersing myself in every step along the way, then the rewards – along with this oh-so-good dopamine hits – are felt fully along the entire length of the path, whether it’s on the shiny peak at the end or rising from the mud, knees all scraped, with a new set of knowledge, skills, and determination to get it better next time.
What are you chasing after this New Year, and how are you going to ensure that you show up for every step of the way?
