Resolutions, by the Inventor, the Humanitarian, and the Warrior King

January 4th, 2022

What do Helen Keller, Thomas Edison and Robert The Bruce have in common? They all have, attributed to them, an oft-repeated quote or apocryphal story which I wish inspired more people to change the way they approach their New Year’s resolutions.

We in the health and fitness industry are inundated during early January with questions, enquires and a level of keenness unseen at any other time of the year. I love it. If it’s your job to help people achieve a goal, you simply cannot beat the collective willingness at this time to ‘wipe the slate clean’ and do better than before. The trouble is the first week of February, which is where most resolutions go to die. Part of my job is to help people not only get started, but maintain that ever elusive momentum which leads to sustainable results. Here’s a few thoughts on how to make your resolutions last a little longer this time.

Helen Keller said, “I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble”. Thomas Edison reportedly made one thousand unsuccessful attempts at inventing the lightbulb before his successful patent in 1879. When chided on his ‘failures’, he said simply “the lightbulb was an invention with one thousand steps”. Six hundred years earlier, Robert The Bruce, at his lowest ebb, was inspired to future victory by the travails of a spider he watched for hours, who simply would not give up until that web was finally woven – “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again”.

All three had the spirit of what I think is missing from many New Year’s resolutions.

Firstly, keep them small and reasonable! The ‘all-or-nothing’ approach normally translates to ‘all-followed-very-quickly-by-nothing’. Why not pick something which you’ve got an honest, fighting chance of keeping going? And then build on that? Keller understood that ‘a win was a win’, and that stacking up small victories was the path to ‘great and noble’.

Secondly, of course, it is natural to be full of enthusiasm at the start of any new thing. It’s expected that there’s a chance that enthusiasm will wane… but what to do at that point? Will you not bother again until the next time we see January the first? Or will you be like Edison and recognise that ‘failure’ isn’t actually a failure at all, but a necessary step on a path to your goal?

As a coach, I help people anticipate when consistency is about to drop, or when motivation is about to wane. It’s much healthier and more productive to reframe these expected ‘dips’ or failures as part of the journey to where you want to be.

This isn’t an anti-New-Year’s Resolution piece. It’s more of a pro-New-Month’s Resolution piece. Make more resolutions! Monthly, weekly, even daily! Stay on it. It doesn’t matter how many times you feel the need to wipe the slate clean and ‘go again’. Keep chipping away at those practices that take you closer to your goals, tweak your approach, experiment, make the challenge more feasible and keep going.

Ultimately, making any sort of resolution can be the first step on the road to improvement in an area which needs it. In a similar way to setting appropriate goals, it’s useful to think about and address the behaviours that will get you to the desired outcome, rather than the outcome itself.

It’s also a good idea to put a time-frame in place and/or a ‘next-step’ to follow on to. Following the lessons learned from the Humanitarian, the Inventor and the Warrior King might just make your New Year’s resolutions a little bit more successful this time around.

Why New Year’s Resolutions Fail — And What Works Instead

The custom of making New-Year’s Resolutions comes around every January… and believe it or not, for most people it’s NOT a positive thing! Why? Surely setting a positive goal and trying to stick to it should be applauded, right?

Wrong. We all know, deep down, that the chances of keeping up those crazily ambitious resolutions wanes by February leaving you feeling like you’ve ‘failed again’. This inevitable sensation serves only to fuel that dreaded ‘All-Or-Nothing’ mentality… which is responsible for many good intentions never getting the chance to succeed, before they are discarded.

Here’s a better way.

1 – Let’s be honest about what it is you’re trying to achieve. Would you be better served by doing nothing towards that goal until you hit January the first? Or is there something small, positive and ‘definitely doable’ that you can start TODAY?

2 – Let’s be realistic about your long-term goal. If that goal is fat loss, perhaps the goal for the end of 2021 should be to not gain any weight for the rest of the year!

3 – More brutal honesty to keep ‘The Grinch’ at bay – can you achieve this without dampening your enjoyment of the festive season? (Yes, you almost certainly can!) There are thousands of ‘background strategies’ that you can have going on which keep you enjoying the food, flavours and drinks of the season, without the outrageous excess. And if outrageous excess really is your thing, are you up for doing that just two nights per week rather than five (for example) to keep one eye on your goal?

4 – It’s incredibly easy to overeat at this time of the year. Avoid guilt by ‘swimming with this tide’ rather than against it. One way to ‘do better’ here is to make sure that your plate has more protein on it than normal… and aim to eat this first, alongside your abundance of vegetables. This small simple shift ensures you feel fuller earlier (with less calories) and get key nutrients in. This is a recommended strategy for reducing bloating, and that familiar Christmas feeling of being ‘over-full’.

5 – Alternatively, you could resolve to eat absolutely anything you fancy… but also commit to eating everything much slower. I have scores of testimonials from clients and friends who have embraced this with (to them) surprising results. Why not give it a go this season… start gently at 10 chews per mouthful – every mouthful – and see what happens…

6 – Think ahead. Write down, or discuss with a friend what you think your New Year’s resolutions will be this January. (Better yet, recall what last year’s were!) Then, ‘halve the impact’: whatever the resolution was, halve it and start it now. This is powerful… half of what you thought was originally needed to ‘succeed’ is more than enough to move you in the right direction… and much more likely to be done consistently.

Let’s do things differently this year. There should be no guilt around your food and drink now, or ever, for that matter. There’s also no need to feel like you need to completely miss out on fun to hit your targets. Postponing all mindfulness of where you’d like to be, in favour of a ‘dry January’ is repeating the cycle of ‘feast and famine’ and frankly, how has that worked for you thus far?

Start now. Start small. And when the next person asks you what your ‘New Year’s resolutions are, hopefully you can honestly say “they’re not that dramatic… and I’ve started them already”. This way lies success.

Start as you mean to go on this year – book that free Health & Nutrition Audit as let’s work together to help your good start to the year evolve into meaningful change.

Ayo Williams