It’s Not Too Late To Keep Your Resolutions

We’re rapidly approaching the second month of 2019, so it’s the perfect time to ask: How is your resolve doing? Are the habit changes you have taken on starting to take hold? Or…not so much?

According to Inc.com, the most popular resolutions for 2019 are:

Diet or eat healthier
Exercise more
Lose weight
Save more and spend less
Learn a new skill or hobby
Quit smoking
Read more
Find another job
Drink less
Spend more time with friends

Many of the items on this year’s list were also on the 2018 list. So, why are we re-resolving to change the same habits year after year?

Apps And Tools Aren’t Enough

There’s no lack of information available on any of the resolutions on the list – there are books, apps, seminars and workshops, support groups, organizations (YMCA, health clubs, MOGs, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Curves, Consumer Credit Counseling), OTC and prescription medication (Chantix, Nicorette, Nicoderm, Hydroxycut, Garcinia Cambogia extract, Meratrim, Orlistat, lorcaserin, Contrave, Saxenda, phentermine) – there’s quite a collection of knowledge out there!

Yet even with all this knowledge available, our resolutions spin endlessly on the merry-go-round every year. And sometimes with determination… as in “THIS year I’m gonna lose weight” or “THIS is my year to quit smoking.” Why?

Here’s The Answer To The Burning Question

The average time for the accountability of a resolution is 6 weeks. The average time for habit change to take hold is 12 weeks. Herein lies the disparity … we give up before our transformation can become a habit. Knowing something doesn’t mean anything more than knowing it.

Knowledge is knowledge, it’s not habit change.

Transformation happens when we get out of our thoughts and into the present. Change is affected in the present moment – a choice to eat a banana instead of a cookie happens when the foods are in front of you and not in your thinking and planning of what you’ll do or eat later.

Resolutions Will Stop Failing When We Keep The Goal In Mind Longer

Perhaps mindfulness should be the goal. We can only focus on one thing at a time, practicing being mindful crowds out being mindless. Mindless eating, spending, drinking, or smoking can be eliminated if we resolve to be mindful, present and focused in the moment. Try it!