Why can't we stick to New Year resolutions?

Mumbai-based Counselling Psychologist, Urveez Kakalia explains why New Year resolutions fail and how can we make them work

It is that time of the year when we contemplate our New Year's resolutions, make promises to improve our lives. The most common resolutions include eating healthy, losing weight, changing jobs, quitting smoking, and learning a new instrument or skill. Yet we know, how rare it is to keep the promises and most resolutions fail within the first few weeks. Counselling Psychologist, Urveez Kakalia explained why New Year resolutions fail and how can we succeed in keeping our resolutions.

1. Goal oriented approach isn’t always helpful
We often set our resolutions with an outcome or a goal as target to achieve. For example, if you want to author and publish a book by the end of the year, what is it that you need to do? Ms. Kakalia said, "Instead of formulating result oriented resolutions, it would be more sustainable to formulate resolutions that allow us to engage in the process of actually achieving those goals." In this case, it would do well to write 500 words every day if you actually want to accomplish your goal of writing a book in a year. We only control what we can do and not the results.

2. Motivation is short lived
A lack of instant results might also adversely impact our motivation and may lead us to give up. Ms. Kakalia advocates discipline over motivation for long term progress. "Discipline refers to doing what you have decided to do in the absence of any urge or drive to do so towards achieving your goals while motivation refers to the fleeting feelings and enthusiasm that drive behaviour. The former is helpful in several areas in life, and goes much beyond your resolution," added Ms. Kakalia.

3. Generic resolutions have limited appeal
Many of us set resolutions focussed on generic reasons such as wanting to stop eating desserts, to losing weight in a bid to fit into old clothes. "Such resolutions do not sustain our interest or discipline in the long run. Finding a personally meaningful and genuine reason would be more helpful such as avoiding tempting desserts because of a history of diabetes in the family that affects well-being and life-span," explained Ms. Kakalia. When your resolutions are rooted in more than superficial or commonplace reasons, you will more likely stick to them, even if you begin to sway the other way, added Ms. Kakalia.

4. Being unreasonable
Your resolution might include exercising daily, skipping a day will not undo all the progress you’ve had. Not every day is the same, and it’s okay to take rest days as long as you return to it. “Another barrier to long term resolution commitment is that we give up completely if we happen to miss out a day or two. We believe we have failed if we slip up even once. Remember you can always get back to it, said Ms. Kakalia.”  

5. Not valuing our word enough
A lot of us find it easier to keep our promises to others rather than to ourselves. Ms. Kakalia explained, “We may have to learn that our commitment to ourselves is as important as those we make to others. This may require some introspection or deeper exploration with a therapist."

Ms.Urveez Kakalia runs her private practice 'ImPerfect' and consults on Practo.

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