Resolution Reboot

Were now halfway through 2018, and for many of us, the resolutions made in the optimism of the New Year may have fallen by the wayside. But dont worry heres your guide to getting back on track

- Paul Little

How did you start the year? Resolving to stop smoking/cut back on the wines/do more exercise/drink less coffee/read more books? Good for you. How’s it going now we’re halfway through 2018?

Thought so. Many people don’t make New Year’s resolutions at all, simply because they fear failure, says Rebecca Stafford, author of forthcoming book The 21-Day Myth, which overturns some accepted beliefs about how changing our behaviours works. According to Stafford, “People typically say: ‘I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions. I’ve stopped making them because they never stick.’”

But even though many of us struggle to keep up the good intentions with which we started the year, resolutions are still an effective way to kick-start change for the better in our lives. Registered psychologist Sara Chatwin, of Auckland’s MindWorks, likes them.

“At the beginning of the year, they give us a focus,” says Chatwin. “They initiate a mindset that gives us a direction.”

She’s not alone in thinking so. According to Moya Sarner, writing in The Guardian, there’s plenty of research “to show that New Year’s resolutions are an effective way to make changes. They create a sense of expectation and ceremony, while the link to a particular day helps to fit our experiences into a narrative of before and after, which makes change more likely.”

GET YOUR AIM RIGHT

One of the most common reasons for missing our targets, according to clinical psychologist Jeremy Clark, is that we fail to aim properly.