Pick One Goal, One Habit, and Go

So it's January 1st, and many New Year's resolutions (NYRs) were made.

In my experience, people don't last on NYRs.

It's because so many of them, perhaps almost all of them, are aspirations and wishes, not plans of action. They aren't habits, they aren't process goals, and they aren't simple.

This isn't because people are bad, or weak, or stupid.

It's because we don't really learn how to make change.

We don't teach it in school. We don't teach it at work. We get down to specifics ("Do X to get Y") that we don't spend time teaching people how to determine what a good goal is, or how to build a habit to get there.

This post is really just more of that. But hopefully it will also teach you how to determine what a good X is, and how it'll help you get to Y.

If you made some NYRs last night, my advice is:


Pick One

Just one. No matter how many you made, pick one. Either pick something that will make the most impact, or is the easiest to do. If you want to take a shot at big changes, pick the first one - quit smoking, exercise every day, lose some body fat. But if you want to make certain you make small, progressive gains, pick the second - the easiest one to do.

You might think you could get better results by doing everything at once, and going for the biggest impact items. But that's like trying to pass a math test by working on problems 1-100 all at once. One at a time is the strategy we learned for exams - use it for life, too. Start with the easy stuff, solve each problem in turn, and then move on to the next one.

Decide on a Habit

You get to your goals based on what you do. Pick something that will get you there - exercises if health is the goal, eating extra veggies instead of starches and breads and pastas if losing weight is your goal, etc. Pick something easy to do - so easy it seems like you could do it 10 times out of 10. 100 times out of 100. Something where, even if you do occasionally fail, you can get right to it and do it. Make it a positive action - something you do, not something you don't do. This way if you forget, you can jump up right now and do it. If it is a "don't," if you do it, you've failed and need to restart. Don't put failures in your path and try to avoid them, put potential successes in your path and try to achieve them.

Get to the gym once a week, by Friday at the latest. Go for a walk X times a week. Drink an 8-oz glass of water before every meal and after every non-water drink. Mix a greens drink the night before and drink it upon waking every morning. Brush your teeth right after you eat (both for tooth health and to discourage picking and snacking).

Make it so easy that failure is harder than success. Just work on this one thing until it's a habit - something you do automatically.

And remember, it's easier to add than subtract - "I will go for a walk this week" is solvable by going for a walk today. "I won't eat any more junk food" is undone by even a single potato chip, ever. Potential success with positive actions, not potential failure with negative prohibitions.

Go

And go. Start there.




You can repeat this process as each habit becomes ingrained. Keep that list of NYRs around - you can pull the next one down as you achieve the first one. Good habits come from small changes ingrained over time. So pick one goal, one habit that will start you on the path, and go.