New Year’s Resolutions Check-In: Adjust, Don’t Abandon

It’s true. When January 1 rolls around, we feel particularly motivated to start new projects, learn new skills, and be better in various aspects, so we write New Year’s resolutions. As January wraps up, however, many of us feel stalled, unable to persist in our resolve to improve.

Take heart. Your brain is remarkably adaptable and trainable. This is something we have proven countless times In our years of providing neurofeedback therapy in Dubai. We’ve seen our clients bounce back from anxiety, ADHD, and depression without medication. We’ve helped students and professionals achieve peak brain performance by learning and unlearning habits according to their goals and aspirations.

Furthermore, that thing that makes us want to change and improve every new year — Wharton scholars call it the “fresh start effect” — is not exclusive to the start of the year. It is time-bound, yes, but it works with every actual or perceived temporal landmark. Therefore, next Monday, your birthday, next summer, and next month work just as well as New Year’s Day for setting resolutions.

What does this mean for you who may be feeling discouraged and disheartened because you were unable to keep your New Year’s promises? If your brain is so powerful you can train it to learn and unlearn habits, and if the fresh start effect is not limited to 1st January but can be triggered with every temporal milestone, it means you have virtually unlimited opportunities to start again.

In other words, if you’re stuck now, do not abandon your resolutions and give up. Instead, adjust, reset, and recharge your resolve. Here’s how.

Step 1: Reflect on What Went Wrong or Stalled

You can only correct problems you recognize and understand. Therefore, reflection is the first step to reactivating your determination to accomplish your resolutions.

This is also what American psychologist, experiential learning specialist, and educational theorist David Kolb believes. In Kolb’s learning cycle, learning and progressing (i.e., improving) requires reflection. Applied to your New Year’s resolutions, Kolb’s learning cycle dictates that:

• You must reflect on your experience: Review, analyze and assess your experience, in this case, your resolution blocker or blockers.
• You must think: Dwell on the abstract concepts, and form a conclusion or determine what you learned from your experience.
• You must experiment: Actively implement or try what you learned.
• You must experience: Feel and immerse yourself in the doing or the experience.

This reflective, progressive learning approach underscores the value of learning through experience and adapting based on what works and what doesn’t. In these moments of self-awareness, new strategies and solutions can emerge.

Step 2: Adjust Your Goals

Sometimes, you falter not because you’re not determined enough but because your goals are very lofty or too vague. How would you know if this is the case? Step 1.

Wouldn’t adjusting your resolutions be tantamount to giving up? No, it’s not. It’s just making changes so your goals fit your life (and lifestyle) better.

Locke and Latham’s goal-setting theory provides a helpful framework here. Essentially, you must have the right goals to improve your chances of accomplishing them.

Clarity, challenge, and complexity are among three of the five principles of goal-setting they identified. Specifically, goals (or associated tasks) must be:

• Clear and concise. You don’t say, “I will exercise.” You say, “I’ll walk five miles three times a week.”
• Sufficiently challenging. Your goals must be a stretch to make you feel a sense of achievement when you achieve them, but they can’t be so difficult that they’ll make you give up before you even start.
• Not too complex. You don’t say, “I will lose weight.” This is much too complex. Instead, you break it down into simpler goals, such as setting a maximum daily calorie intake, daily step count, hours of weightlifting at the gym, how many days a week you’ll train at the gym, etc.

Adjusting your goals so they’re clearer, less complex, and just challenging enough to motivate you will not diminish the importance of your resolution or your achievement upon accomplishing them. They simply make your resolutions more attainable and set you up for wins that build momentum.

Step 3: Reignite Motivation by Finding Intrinsic Value in an Activity

What motivates you to do things? Motivation can be intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation exists when you do something for its sake; it’s the activity itself that motivates you. Extrinsic motivation is the opposite — you do something because it leads to a separate outcome.

Between the two, intrinsic motivation is more powerful than extrinsic motivation. Therefore, you must look at the activities you’ve set out for yourself in your New Year’s resolutions and find your intrinsic motivation for them.

For instance, if your resolution is to walk five miles three days every week, you likely set it because of an extrinsic motivator: You want to be more fit. However, what if you actually enjoy walking? That’s intrinsic motivation — doing something because it’s satisfying in itself.

Revisit your New Year’s resolutions to see if you can align them to intrinsic motivations. You might have been extrinsically motivated when you set your resolutions. But you may be able to find intrinsic value in them.

Step 4: Add Fun and Flexibility

Fun is important. It’s why you’re more likely to accomplish resolutions you enjoy doing (see Step 3 about intrinsic motivation). Therefore, add fun to your resolutions to make them more intrinsically rewarding and motivating.

Moreover, don’t get stuck in resolutions you’re less than enthused about. Be flexible enough to make changes as needed. See Step 2.

Suppose your overarching goal is fitness. Thus, you put walking five miles three times a week as a resolution. However, you don’t really enjoy walking (you’re not intrinsically motivated by it), but you do enjoy dancing. Instead of sticking to walking five miles three times a week, why not swap it with Zumba or even street dance classes three times a week?

Remember that you’re in control, so be spontaneous and flexible. Self-determination theory explains how autonomy — the ability to make choices that align with your preferences — plays a crucial role in sustaining motivation and long-term behavior changes.

Don’t get stuck. Exercise your agency or autonomy to determine how you will achieve your objectives.

You know your resolutions better than anyone, and you know why you put something on your list of New Year’s resolutions. If you know your ultimate objective, it should be easy enough to swap stalled activities with others you find more enjoyable.

Celebrate Progress, Not Perfection

Are you stuck with your New Year’s resolutions? Reset and recharge. Your brain is more than capable of doing that.

You can make a fresh start next week or next month. Reflect on your current resolutions. If they are unrealistic and vague, adjust them. If you can’t seem to be motivated to do them, find intrinsic value in them. If all else fails, change them into something more enjoyable but equally beneficial. Remember: Resolutions are yours to make and do with as you see fit.

If you want to explore brain training for a better you, we can help. Contact us at Evolve Brain Training to learn more about neurofeedback therapy for self-improvement.