Resolutions that work

New Year is upon us and the pressure is mounting. It is a time of year when we create huge amounts of anxiety by seeing our future as lying before us on January 1. In reality, your future continually lies in front of you and you can make decisions to change and rearrange your life on a moment by moment basis. Be that as it may, the pressure is on as the hiatus in work commitments brings a moment for reflection and the opportunity to make “resolutions” for the year ahead. We all know though, that by February resolutions can lie like discarded chip packets beside life’s highway. If you want to keep those New Year resolutions though, a new study has shown how you can do it.

Psychologists from Wake Forest University have found that committing to a specific plan to achieve a goal not only makes the goal more likely to be achieved but it gets it off your mind so you can think about other things.

The researchers made the point that only specific types of planning work. A plan that will help you achieve your resolutions will have certain characteristics. It will specify what your actions will be in specific situations and it will be under your control and not rely on external people and influences. Additionally, it will include specific opportunities for your goal to be realised and, perhaps most importantly, it will be something that you are motivated to achieve.

Most importantly though, you must be able to create a picture of yourself carrying out your resolution. You must be able to see it, to visualise it. Imagining something has a similar neural pattern in the brain to actually doing the thing, and so can help create the habits that will see you achieve your goal.

The other key aspect to all of this is having real and specific contingency plans. If you want to lose weight for instance, and you go to a fast food outlet, you should have in your plan to order a salad rather than a burger and chips.

Taking the time to make a detailed prediction of what you need to do to achieve your goal and to see yourself carrying out those activities will take you a long way toward actually achieving that goal. As mentioned, the other Beauty of this approach is that by making the plan in detail you have done what you need to do to achieve your aim right at the start and programmed your mind to make it happen. Paradoxically, it is this detailed planning that frees you up to do other things and to enjoy the moment to moment experience of life.

So make your plans, see them being fulfilled, gather your rosebuds, and have a wonderful life.