Why Habits Are More Powerful Than Resolutions

by Katerina Wright

Well folks, it’s January, so you know what that means...the whole world is setting resolutions for the year ahead!

Setting resolutions sounds great in theory – so why are they so hard to maintain?

According to studies, around 75% of people stick to their resolutions for more than a week. After 6 months, that figure drops to 46%.

The problem with resolutions is that they generally require some kind of huge change. If you don’t have the proper building blocks in place, big changes are hard to maintain.

Our mental energy, willpower, and motivation will naturally ebb and flow over time.If we rely on them, we can quickly become overwhelmed in the face of a huge goal– and it might feel easier to just quit.

So, what is the answer? It’s all in one word: habits.

Habits are small and sustainable actions over a prolonged period that can lead to some pretty amazing results.

Read on to find out exactly why habits are more powerful than resolutions.

Give Yourself The ‘How’

The New Year’s Resolutions that usually fail focus on an outcome, rather than the behaviour needed to create the results you want.

This means you understand the ‘what’ but not the ‘how.’ It is the ‘how’ that, over time, creates results.

A goal that a lot of people set at the beginning of a New Year is to lose weight. If you focus on the ‘what’, you could find yourself in restriction mode, removing everything you love from your diet.

Instead of focusing on loss, focus on gaining new habits.

Add more activity into your routine, as gentle as you like. Add more vegetables to your meals, rather than cutting all sweets from your diet.

Once this becomes sustainable, you can tackle something more challenging. Every action and habit you introduce gets you closer to your end goal – because you’refocused on the ‘how.’

Create Consistency

Resolutions are typically supposed to be achieved in a short time. Then you have achieved your goal and you can go ‘back to normal.’

Here’s the problem: quick fixes usually don’t work. You aren’t giving yourself enough time to create meaningful change.

If you do something every day, it eventually just becomes part of your routine –like brushing your teeth or making a cup of coffee in the morning.

It can take anything from 21 to 60 days to build a new habit into your routine. The more your behaviour becomes habitual, the more consistently it will show up in your life until you no longer think about it at all – it’s something you perform automatically.

Set Realistic Goals

Another benefit of starting small with your habits is that you set yourself attainable objectives.

Take running as an example. If you decide you want to complete a 10k and you’ve never run before, this could feel like a huge task.

Break your goal down into small chunks. Make a habit of going on a ten-minute run, get comfortable with that, and then increase your time.

Add these smaller goals into your diary, then set them as a meeting if that’s a sure-fire way to get you to commit to yourself.

You’ll be crossing that finish line in no time!

Celebrate Your Wins More Often

The beauty of habits is that instead of just waiting until you achieve one huge goal, you get to tick off lots of little ones on the way there.

This is a huge confidence booster, and one of the best ways to stick to your habits is to associate positive emotions with them.

Make sure you actually celebrate! Whether it’s taking yourself out to your favourite coffee shop or going somewhere special at the weekend – the more you celebrate your achievements, the more energised you will feel to keep going.

So, there you have it! If you’ve struggled to keep your resolutions in the past,setting up good habits is going to be your key to long-term behavioural changes and sustainable results.

If you want to learn more about the power of habits, the book ‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear is an excellent place to start. Or why not come to one of Club Synergy’s Active Accountability Sessions?

The session is set up to allow for forty minutes of exercise (any kind you like) and forty minutes of deep work to banish some tasks from your to-do list. It’s a supportive space for you to put new habits into practice, with like-minded business owners cheering you on. Find out more here.