New Year, New You? Taking Small Steps is the Key to Becoming Happier
Posted on 3rd January 2025 at 14:42
New Year’s resolutions. Have you made yours? Are you determined that this year will be different? Most resolutions have been abandoned by the end of January.
So, don’t be so hasty. Is this just a knee-jerk reaction to a month of excess and unnatural behaviour? What if there was a way you could spark the change you want without relying on willpower and sacrifice?
Here are my thoughts and top tips for setting sail into a brand-new blue yonder for 2025.
Take it slow!
Blistering starts are not sustainable. It is hard to begin an exercise habit, for example, when the mornings and evenings are dark and cold. Start slow and build up, so as not to disappoint. Whatever your chosen habit, aim to do it in small amounts, so that when you finish doing it on any given day, you are motivated to go back again.
To help you do this – try the Two Minute Rule. Read for two minutes a day. Play guitar for two minutes a day. Run for two minutes a day. This may sound ridiculous, but by doing this you will hack into the main reason why we don’t practice the things we need to practice. Reading a book a week seems daunting, as does learning to play Layla, or running a 5k straight from the couch (that’s why there is a programme for that).
The daunted-ness of it all is what stops us from starting, and it is the decision to do something that is the pivotal moment of beginning an activity. Once you have tied your shoelaces, so to speak, you get into game mode, and the rest follows like habit. The only habit you need to develop is the decision to say ‘yes’. If you realise that you only have to do something for two minutes, it seems far more realistic that you will do that than for a whole hour.
When your timer has buzzed after the allotted time, you won’t believe how quick that was, and well, you might as well just carry on and enjoy it for a while. You have no defined goal beyond this, so you just enjoy it for what it is. This may not have the discipline of a defined training programme for a marathon, but I am not talking about that. I am referring to making those small changes which add up to you being a little happier.
Do you really need to change?
Just step back for a minute. It is perfectly natural after a holiday period of excess in consumption (eating and drinking, and also spending) to panic and think that your life is out of control. The human mind will focus on the misses and disappointments of last year and aim to put them right, instead of more productively focusing on what did go well.
What can you carry with you from last year? What did you start and can build on now that the distraction of December is out of the way? Instead of looking hopefully forward, perhaps look back first. What would you like to keep working on, as opposed to start, because surely you weren’t that far off the mark last year? It was execution rather than strategy that kept you from being who you want to be. Perhaps it was the way you look at yourself which is the problem.
I believe that most of us have all the answers inside ourselves as to who we need to be, and that we are constantly working towards that. We only need a small shift sometimes, a new angle to look at life to define what it is that we must do to get what we need. There are always barriers in the way, and distractions which mislead us, but at the same time, we don’t need to work too hard to get there. And what if ‘there’ - was right here – and all we had to do was make some tweaks to take with us what we need, and ditch what we don’t?
Get in touch for a free chat on how to make your New Year’s resolutions work for you.
Share this post: