The New Year provides reinvigoration of our true desires to many of us. Personally, I like to revisit my goals although this year I've thought about the New Year Resolutions concept and decided to play with some habitual-type behaviors that I want to influence myself on.
Two of the books I listened to last year provided some insights which I believe can help most anyone with their resolutions. Here's what I noted:
In the past I would try to make changes too ambitiously; I would give myself the expectation of doing the new behavior for 21 days in a row, in order to capture the well-known psychology factor of building a habit in 21 days; I would shoot for the stars, which I believe in, but I wanted the result starting day one. This left me in the predicament that if I missed a day I felt I would have to start the 21 days from scratch plus I set up my resolutions so that it was easy to disappoint myself. This led to demoralization and sometimes giving up altogether.
The New Method
The best example I found so far is how to get out of bed early. If my circadian rhythm had me waking up at 7AM but instead I wanted to get up at 5 I would previously set my alarms (yes, that's plural) for 4:45 - too aggressive for my purposes. I ended up hitting the snooze button multiple times and sometimes having to just sleep in because I wasn't allowing my body to rest well.
Now with my new knowledge I understand that if I already have 7AM "mastered" that my next challenge is going to be 6:45. Easy enough, right? Basically, I now set my alarm at the latest, not earliest time, that I am okay getting up at. This doesn't at first give me the extra two hours I am hunting for but I can make progress little by little until eventually I end up reaching my true goal without shocking my system but while still having wins most days. I believe you can apply this method to most behavioral changes that we are after as part of our New Year Resolutions or otherwise.
Give it a go! Post how you do with this plus your goals and resolutions. Best wishes in 2014!
Juan
Books mentioned are:
The Will Power Instinct by Kelly McGonigal
Eat, Move, Sleep by Tom Grath
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