An Alternative Approach To New Year Resolutions (Step By Step Guide)

The time is upon us once more, a new year is here with a feeling of new beginnings for many.

The infamous new year, new me movement is currently invading your local gym and many people are taking these first few weeks of the year to ponder what their resolutions for the year ahead should be.

New year resolutions are an age-old tradition within our society.

They actually date back to 4,000 years ago. The ancient Babylonians are thought to have been the first people to make New Year’s resolutions.

If we were to unpack the purpose of resolutions, my simple take would be that these serve the purpose of the pursuit of betterment in one’s life. Identifying things we don’t enjoy about our lives at this moment and doing something about it.

Of course this can be a great activity to partake in if done in a thoughtful and sustainable way.

This piece hasn’t been written to knock resolutions or the pursuit of developing oneself. Rather, it provides an alternative method to support you in building sustainable changes in your life over the next 12 months. 

I personally find traditional resolutions to be less than effective for many.

I think we can all find examples of the same people who set the same resolutions each year and still feel no closer to those changes 10 years later.

What could we do instead?

A proposal that I’d like to ask you to think about involves putting what you know about the concept of resolutions to one side.

Instead, let’s do a simple review and reflection of the year that’s just been.

This is an activity that I’ve been doing over the last few years. 

Historically I’ve set macro goals for each year

I break these down into micro levels of what I needed to achieve by certain points of the year so I can fulfil those main goals.

However I find this approach to be cumbersome, stressful and often led to many of these goals rolling into the next year as I had set unrealistic time frames for a lot of them.

I made the decision to step away from using the beginning of each year to set out a list of new goals to try to achieve. Instead, I pursued a new approach in using this time to reflect and review what has just passed. 

This allowed me to see a number of things including:

• What went well
• What I enjoyed
• Memorable events
• What I can work on in the year ahead

In taking the time to reflect and review these points, I’m able to identify the things that made me happy and went well (even those I didn’t expect would).

This provides me with a sense of achievement and peace. 

Plus, it helps with not falling into that mental zone of beating myself up because I feel like I haven’t done anything to progress in the previous 12 months.

Of course, these are not set in stone.

They will no doubt evolve over the year in a few ways depending on what life throws at me.

Personally I find this approach more meaningful.

You should take time to appreciate your successes.

Smile at the things that make you happy. Rejoice at the habits, behaviours and experiences that you continue to implement which provide growth.

I combine this with key questions ask myself throughout the year.

These makes sure I’m clear on what I value and want to do more of.

What you can do: A framework to develop sustainable habits and behaviours

• Grab a piece of paper or open a word document, divide the page into three columns. Now label one – What went well? The second: What did I enjoy? And the last as: What can I work on?
• Now spend 30 minutes reviewing the last 12 months. Place the thoughts that come into your head in each column.
• Once you’ve completed this, make sure (and this is the really important bit) to read all of your responses in depth to really appreciate everything you’ve noted.
• The final step is to look over your what can I work on column. Take the final part of your reflection session to produce the 3-5 top things you want to work on in the year ahead. 

Do remember these don’t need to be complicated.

They could be as simple as I only read 10 books last year, so this year I want to read 15.

Or I want to increase my meditation sessions from twice a week. So, maybe I’ll commit to 3 sessions a week this year and see how it goes.

The key is to appreciate your starting point.

Too many of us don’t understand that goals need to be personalised to where we are right now. This is why many of us fall down in the second week of the year, we simply ask too much too soon.

A common example of this being when people want to improve their physical fitness.

Let’s say person x wishes to improve their physical fitness this year, great, so what do they do?

In my approach, you would review your starting point and what’s happened over the past 12 months.

• What physical activities have you been doing?
• How many times a week do you do these?
• Do these supplement your lifestyle? 

These are important points to review before making plans for the next 12 months. 

You might then say, I already workout twice a week. I feel like a 3rd session will bring more benefits to my lifestyle. Great, you’ve assessed your starting point, feel you can add a bit more and assessed that this is a sustainable change.

Sadly, this is not the approach many of us take.

We often come from a place of having no historical physical activity practice and then jump into a gruelling body and mind crushing routine of hitting the gym 5-6 times a week. 

This leads to said people running themselves into the ground with no energy. Those resolutions are out the door by week 2 of the new year.

Going forward

Instead of resolutions, why not consider a time of review and reflection.

Build sustainable habits, behaviours and routines

I’m not saying it’s the one answer that will work for you.

It’s an alternative. It could be the more successful approach to making the changes you really want.

So, what’s it going to be?

Follow the 99% or do something different?

Before you go… 👋

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