How to Set (and Achieve) Good New Year Resolutions

It’s the time of year when people start thinking about New Year resolutions and making changes in their lives. Some of us even put off starting a change we want to make so it can coincide with the new year. But you’ve probably also heard the statistics about how most resolutions fail after just a month or two. If you want to set and achieve good New Year resolutions, it’s important to set yourself up for success.

See Why Resolutions Fail with Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps for a complete transcript of the Easy Prey podcast episode.

Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps is a lot of things, but most essentially a psychologist. She has a private practice where she works with adults, individuals, and couples. In addition, she has a YouTube channel and does a lot of writing. She writes the Making Change blog at Psychology Today, a personal blog called Authentically You, and has published three books, Insecure in Love, The Insecure in Love Workbook, and Bouncing Back from Rejection, which are all based in the idea of attachment theory.

Years ago, Leslie directed a women’s trauma program that helped women with histories of abuse. When she moved on from that role, she decided to try something a little less heavy. So she did positive psychology for a while, but kept finding herself drawn to what happens when that doesn’t work. Eventually, she ended up on the idea of what makes it hard for people to change. That’s where she came upon the role of attachment theory. Attachment theory says the ability to become attached to people is part of our survival mechanism, and trauma can interfere with that. If you have insecure attachment, everything is harder, including making changes in your life. So she centers attachment theory in her teaching.

Why New Year Resolutions Fail

Part of the problem with New Year resolutions is that many people set them for the sake of setting them. It’s January 1 and everybody is talking about their resolutions, so you figure you should come up with something too. But if you’re setting a resolution just to set one, not only is it unlikely to be a good new year resolution, you’re likely to fail because you lack intrinsic motivation.

But if you’re genuinely trying to make changes in your life, though, it can be a tool. When you realize what change you want, do the internal work to set it up, and the new year happens to line up with your intended start date, that’s fine. But putting off a change because you want it to start at a particular date probably won’t be as effective.

It’s about the changes you want to make for yourself. It’s not about New Year’s.

Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps

Really making an effective change and setting good New Year resolutions starts with looking inside yourself. You have to start with a foundation of knowing what makes you, you, and what makes you feel good about yourself. Once you have that positive foundation, you can recognize what change you want to make and move forward. No change is a straight line – you’ll have good days and bad days. And starting from feeling good about yourself can help motivate you through the bad days.

Where It’s Easy to Go Wrong with New Year Resolutions

Setting good New Year resolutions – or goals in general – and then accomplishing them is an area where a lot of people struggle. That’s why Leslie always recommends starting with feeling good about yourself. Going back to attachment theory, people who are insecurely attached feel like they’re flawed or not loveable or generally have a negative sense of self. When you’re trying to make a change driven by negativity, you end up trying to distance yourself from yourself. And that just doesn’t work.

[If] you’re trying to distance yourself from you, that’s where people go wrong.

Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps

When you become aware that you have those negative feelings, you can allow yourself to recognize you’re struggling and that’s hard. If you had a friend who was struggling to exercise regularly, you wouldn’t call them a fat lazy oaf – you would acknowledge it’s hard and offer support. Any change will be a struggle, and you have to be supportive of yourself. It’s easy to label yourself as unsuccessful and bad and beat yourself up. It’s much harder to say that you’re not perfect but you can grow. But mindset is more important than goal. You can practice and get better.

Get Support from Others

No matter how good your New Year resolutions are or how good you feel about yourself, we all have bad days when change just feels impossible. If we can have a healthy relationship with ourselves, we can get through the struggles and get back on the path when we stumble or fall. Attachment theory doesn’t just talk about how you relate to yourself, though – it’s also about how you relate to others. You want to be in relationships with people who support you and help meet your goals.

Whatever that person’s role, surround yourself with people where you feel safe and secure in that relationship, It will help you become the person you want to be. The artist Michelangelo didn’t come to a block of stone with a sculpture in mind. He looked at the stone, saw the sculpture inside, and just removed everything that wasn’t the sculpture. The idea is that you should spend time with people who see your raw stone but also see the statue you want to become and want to help you get there.

Support from others can also come in different ways, too. Some people may be there to help distract you or cheer you up when you’re having a bad time. Others may be willing to sit with you while you’re sad. As long as their roles are constructive to you, these different approaches are fine. They can all help hold you while you catch your breath to keep moving forward.

Not Everyone Will Help Meet Your Goals

You know yourself and where your struggles are the best. If your relationships play into your struggles, be cautious. Some of us have friends, maybe ones we’ve had for a long time, where when we’re with them, our self-criticism gets worse. We may not even be sure why it happens. But if you notice this, it’s important to look at the relationship and ask why. If you’re aware of yourself, you can look. Sometimes we have to work to figure out if what feels true is actually true.

Sometimes we have to separate out what feels true from what is true.

Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps

When we have someone negative in our lives, it’s easy to say, “Oh, it’s okay that they called me stupid, because I am really stupid about these things.” It can feel true that they actually are supportive and you’re the problem here. But should a good friend talk to you that way? No. It’s important to separate that just because it feels true doesn’t mean it is.

After reflecting, it may be time to do things differently. You can keep someone as a good friend and choose not to reach out to them when you’re having a hard time. There are many different ways to come at this, but the idea is to see what’s helpful and what isn’t in meting your goals and New Year resolutions, then move towards what is helpful and move away what’s bringing you down.

Dealing with Setbacks

We’re all going to have setbacks as we set and accomplish good goals and New Year resolutions. Getting past them requires resilience and compassionate self-awareness. If you have a secure relationship with yourself, a setback isn’t a failure or proof you’re horrible, it’s just a setback.

It’s easier to keep going forward when you see yourself in a broader perspective. So you broke your diet. A lot of people struggle with that – it’s not you, it’s a human thing. If you can realize it’s just part of being human, the pressure comes off. Now you can start figuring out what you need, what you can do differently, and how you are going to go forward.

Some of the greatest achievements in the world happened because people failed but kept coming back. Einstein was told he wasn’t smart enough to be a professor. Edison just wanted to keep doing stuff, even if he kept failing. You have your strengths – the missing key to accomplishing your goals and New Year resolutions is persistence. It has to come with persistence if you want to accomplish anything.

You have whatever your strengths are. It’s got to come with the persistence of you to make the gains you want to make in life.

Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps

It’s Okay to Not Know the Problem

You will have setbacks along the way. Change isn’t a straight line. It’s normal, it’s not the end of the world, and it shouldn’t be a surprise. And if you don’t know why you can’t do this, it’s okay to start there. That’s the beginning of self-awareness.

If you’re really at a loss, Leslie walks her clients through an awareness process. One client recently told her that she didn’t know why she didn’t make the phone call. So Leslie asked her to start with what she feels and notices in her body when she goes to make the phone call. She said she froze and her heart was beating fast. From there, she determined she was scared.

If you don’t know what’s going on, start with the basics. What sensations did you feel in your body? What actions did you end up taking? Once you have that full picture, you can realize that of course you wouldn’t be able to make the phone call (or do whatever it is you were trying to do) with all that going on. And you can start to see what you need to change and adapt. If you keep getting stuck on why you can’t change, go down to the micro level. Start with very basic self-awareness and build up from there.

The Three Levels of a Good Goal

Self-awareness is where you have to start to set and achieve good New Year resolutions, or any goal. You have to know where you’re at to make a plan to get where you’re going. If you want to start exercising and plan to run a mile a day, even though you haven’t done anything more strenuous than walk around a grocery store in years, you’re setting yourself up for failure. You have to know what you want, set specific, concrete plans, start small, and build up.

Leslie encourages having three levels of goal. One is the bare minimum that you do just to keep you consistent. That could be as simple as walking to the mailbox and back or putting on your exercise clothes. If that’s all you can do, then you’ve succeeded because you’re building a success mindset. Next, your moderate goal. This is one that you think you could do on an average day, such as walk for twenty minutes. Finally, the idealistic goal. That is the one that you can do on your best day – maybe on a really good day you could run for twenty minutes instead of walk.

Having these three goals gives you some range. We all fluctuate in our abilities and energy on a given day. Whenever you’re accomplishing one of those goals, even if it’s very simple and easy, you’re still succeeding.

The Bare Minimum Goal

Leslie does yoga every morning and has for a while. Some days her energy is great and she bounds out of bed ready to do yoga. Some days she just doesn’t feel like it. But with any exercise, including yoga, you have to be consistent. So she has started every morning rolling out her yoga mat and standing at the foot of it. If nothing else, she’s accomplished that much.

If you can do the equivalent of that with the change you want to make, it lets you build that consistency. Most of us can commit to something that small, and that’s a success every time we manage it. If you find yourself standing at the top of that yoga mat with a lot of energy, you can go ahead and do your sun salutations. If not, you at least built that habit of getting out your yoga mat every morning.

Think about what a small goal could look like for whatever it is you want your New Year resolution to be. A lot of people want to start walking or running. Could you put on your sneakers in the morning? Whether or not you actually go walk or run, you could probably do that. Find the minimum you can commit to, and if that’s as simple as putting on the shoes, that’s fine. Build from there. Having these small wins helps you feel good about yourself, which will help with consistency and build up to bigger changes.

Feeling good about yourself helps with the commitment [to your goal] and being able to do it every day.

Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps

Prepare for Bad Days

It’s been mentioned several times that you’re going to have bad days when pursuing a good goal or New Year resolution. The best way to manage them and get back on track is to plan for them in advance. It’s easier to plan ahead when you’re having a good day than to try to figure it out going forward. It helps Leslie to write down everything – not just her plan, but all her her different levels of goals and the reasons she wants to make the change. Writing down everything may not be the best choice for everyone, but at the very least you should write down your plan. It makes it easier to remember when you’re having a hard time.

If you’re struggling with not following through on a particular activity, what tools will help? What would help keep you from getting down or feeling anxious? Write it down. It can feel pointless in the moment, but if you have a list you’re more likely to follow through. Leslie also recommends writing a letter to yourself. When you’re having a good day, write a letter to your future struggling self. You’re not telling yourself what to do, but showing compassion – saying that you’ve been there, and even though it may feel like it’ll never get better you’ll feel good again. You know what would encourage you best when you’re feeling down.

Keep it accessible, and when you’re feeling down and discouraged, pull it out. Nobody can give you a better pep talk thank you, and you’ll know you mean it.

Resources to Help You Make Changes

If you’re thinking about how to set good New Year resolutions, it’s probably because you want to make a change. And if you google something like “new year resolutions” or “change your life,” it will give you a bunch of results. Be sure that you read critically. Does it actually resonate with you, or is it more about selling something? If it makes you feel like you’re missing out on something, be careful that it’s not snake oil.

Leslie also has some of her own resources that could be helpful to you. On Psychology Today, she writes the Making Change blog, where she talks about making all kinds of changes in your life. She also has a blog on her personal website, Authentically You, where she talks more about attachment theory. On her YouTube channel, she posts short videos on different topics, and has also created playlists on different topics.

In addition, Leslie has three books. Insecure in Love could help if you struggle with anxiety in intimate relationships. The Insecure in Love Workbook has a bunch of how-tos for the process, as well as some new thoughts. Her other book, Bouncing Back from Rejection, could help if you struggle with rejection. And if you can’t afford it or don’t want to put your money in, you can go to your library. If you want to make a change, resources are out there.

Dr. Leslie Becker-Phelps is the only person with that name on the planet – if you put that in google she will come up. You can also visit drbecker-phelps.com, check out the Making Change and Authentically You blogs, visit her YouTube channel, or check out Insecure in Love, The Insecure in Love Workbook, or Bouncing Back from Rejection.