The Characteristics Of People Who Follow Through With New Year's Resolutions

Have you reflected on the year that has passed and set some goals for 2021? You may be thinking ‘no one ever reaches their New Year’s resolutions’, but research actually shows people are ten times more likely to reach their goals if they set them at the start of the year.

Instead of just having weight loss goals, the most common NY resolution, one of our colleagues, Glenn Mackintosh, a Brisbane-based Psychologist, encourages his patients to go beyond setting weight-related goals and encourages them to set their intentions in a non-weight focused way. He knows people start off with the best of intentions and then struggle to keep going with them, but he also recognises that there are six common characteristics of people who do follow through.

1. They keep an open mind

They do something truly different in order to get truly different results. If you are going to explore new ideas, it’s likely that your brain will find some of them hard to accept at first. Opening your mind doesn’t mean you need to blindly believe everything about the new approach you are following, but it does mean being prepared to contemplate an alternative way of seeing things.

2. They self-nurture

You deserve good things, and it’s okay to prioritise yourself, and believe that you’re worth it. No matter what, it never works if you don’t prioritise yourself. Results simply don’t come until you make them important. Taking care of yourself is not selfish – it’s nothing to feel guilty about, it’s just necessary. 

3. They embrace growing pains

While we could search for underlying reasons why it has been difficult for you to change – and probably find some – the number one reason is that change is sometimes uncomfortable. However, unlike the familiar discomfort of being stuck in the same place, the pains you will experience as a part of making a positive change are ‘good pains, let’s call them ‘growing pains’. It doesn’t have to be hard to be worthwhile, or things don’t have to get worse before they get better, it’s just that if we need to experience some discomfort in order to move forwards, let’s make a bit of room for it.

So if you need to experience some discomfort – be it fear of the unknown, guilt for saying no, uncertainty about the future, the uneasiness of learning a new skill, some sadness that you are no longer suppressing with food or just plain effort – take a deep breath, summon your inner courage, get any support you need and make yourself worth it! Once you get over the initial pains, you’ll thank yourself for being brave, taste a delicious combination of relief and self-satisfaction, and maybe even realise it wasn’t as hard as you originally thought.

4. They cultivate imperfectionism

Many people wonder why they can have everything else in order, but struggle so much with their weight. This is because perfectionism works well in a lot of areas of life (you don’t want your pilot not to be a perfectionist!), but terribly when it comes to eating, physical activity, weight and body image concerns. Perfectionism is linked with body image issues (it’s hard to love your body if anything less than perfect is not okay), disordered eating and unhealthy attitudes to exercise, and with both unhealthy weight loss and unhealthy weight gain. So if you have a strong perfectionistic streak, let’s leave it for areas of life to which it’s better suited.

A supermarket run to fill the house with veggies is better than a super-food fest you didn’t have the funds to buy. A ten-minute stroll in the fresh air at lunch is better than an hour-long walk you planned but didn’t do. A night out wearing a dress that’s not your fave is better than a night out you missed because you didn’t have the perfect dress. To paraphrase a quote from Voltaire, ‘Perfection is the enemy of good.’

"The road to your dreams is paved with imperfect action."

This is how it will work. You’ll set a few intentions for the year. Some you’ll smack out of the park, others you’ll half do, some you’ll remember but something will get in the way of, and others you’ll completely forget about. And that’s fine! it’s okay, keep moving forward, and be content to be doing a good job of things.

5. They have patience

Do you ever feel impatient about change and end up sabotaging yourself by looking for quick fixes? The aim is to develop patience and focus on slowly creating lasting results. 

6. They do the ‘work’

The most extraordinary results always come from the people who do the most ordinary thing – it always comes back to ‘they just did the work’. Turn up to your appointment, get support from the team, attend a retreat and our support group activities; ask for what you need. Work with someone who can help and support you to do the work you need to do to turn your dreams into a reality this year.