Opinion: Let’s focus on sustainable wellbeing goals rather than New Year’s resolutions

The start of a new year means people often feel a renewed sense of hope and optimism for the year ahead. This, along with a great deal of messaging on all forms of media, can lead to people making New Year’s resolutions that can be quite bold and significant. For some people, the new year is the catalyst for changes they had been planning and wanting to make for some time. As many people are also on holiday, they have the time, energy and headspace to commit to changes and put plans into action. As we enter March, it is worth asking how everyone is doing?

Many people will have started their resolutions with a hiss and a roar, but now may find that as work and family responsibilities have picked up, and time has become more scarce, the ability to stick to those resolutions has decreased. What we do know is that when it comes to changing something about ourselves or our lives, people tend to do this when they are moving towards something they want that is important to them (reward motivation), or they are moving away from something unpleasant. So, if your goal is to start an exercise programme, you might be working towards being able to go on bike rides with your children, and might be working to move away from negative blood test results from your doctor’s appointments.

One tip I have is to keep your goals manageable and start off small. This way, you will get some wins early on, which will be rewarding and motivate you to keep going. People often make resolutions that are unrealistic and therefore hard to achieve, which means the habits required for success are hard to maintain. If you were going to start a new exercise programme, it would be unrealistic to set a goal of cycling five kilometres each morning when you haven’t ridden a bike for years. What would be realistic is to start off riding for five or 10 minutes and slowly build up from there.

For many people, health and wellbeing, relationships, finances and work goals are things that form our resolutions, and these are areas of life where we would like to see sustained, positive change.

Having goals that are linked to things you really value are important in order to maintain behavioural change. For example, focussing on eating better food for your health, rather than having a goal of weight loss, is often easier to sustain as it is a long-term lifestyle change which you can link to values of health and perhaps being able to be more active with your loved ones. Losing weight may come as a result, but looking at lifestyle changes that you want to keep going long-term is better than going on a ‘diet’, restricting what you eat and then yo-yoing in your weight when you start to eat as you did before.

We all need reinforcement (rewards) for behaviour; so, reward yourself in healthy and helpful ways for the efforts you make. Make the reward something that is in the near future. For example, if you were going to quit smoking, the long-term benefits are substantial but hard to feel excited about when they are going to take some time to achieve and be visible. But if you focus on saving the money you would have spent on cigarettes and putting it towards a weekend away with people you care about, this will be motivating and increase the chance of success.

Don’t wait to reward yourself until you see the outcome you are looking for. Instead, reward effort. Keep the habits going, and the results will come, but they will often take time. And don’t wait for motivation to make change. Motivation can be like an upside-down bell-shaped curve – starts off high, then drops away until results become apparent, and then increases again. Unfortunately, a lot of people quit once the motivation drops away.

The best way to maintain change at that stage is to create really good routines and habits. It can also be helpful to ask for support from your social network to maintain your habits during those dips in motivation. Going for a walk with a friend combines a sense of achievement with a sense of connection and enjoyment, which increases the chance you will keep doing it. Resolutions might be individual goals, but the efforts to achieve them don’t have to be done in isolation. Plan ahead, schedule in the time to make the changes to achieve your goals and ask for help if you need it. There is strength in numbers and having peer support for behaviour change is powerful and is known to increase success.

The start of a new year is a time many people reflect on their lives and look honestly at where they would like there to be, what they need to change and how they might get there. This can be really positive if you are realistic, make the time for changes in routines and habits, have some healthy and helpful rewards built in to sustain motivation, ask for help when you need it and focus on effort rather than outcome. Long-term lifestyle changes that will benefit your physical and emotional health, relationships and living situation are great resolutions but might take time. If your good intentions and changes slip, they can be restarted with some self-compassion and good routines. So remember, every day is a fresh start and each morning provides an opportunity for a reset and to try again.

Professor Kirsty Ross is the Acting Head of School of Massey University’s School of Psychology.