Did you know that over 90% of the people who make New Year’s resolutions fail? It’s actually more like 95%, but about 5% of the ones counted in the “success group” are lying about it because they are too ashamed to come to grips with the fact that they failed, or they “tweaked” their original resolution along the way to make it more achievable. I call the 95% who fail, “Resolutionaries” because they tend to make the same unrealistic resolution over and over, year after year and keep failing. Maybe this is where Ben Franklin’s quote came from: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Are you tired of being a Resolutionary? Are you ready to revolutionize your resolutions and try something new, instead of that same old thing that hasn’t been working for you?
I’ve got a 7 step resolution revolution for you and I’ll even hold your hand through these steps if you come to the Resolution Revolution workshop on January 9th at 3 – 6 pm in the Eastside X Gym. Plus, you will get all the details on each step, how to develop a strategy and how to execute that strategy, so be sure to be there!
Step 1. Find your “Away From” motivator. This is the pain you feel being the way you are now. Pain is a great motivator to get people moving and to overcome that initial inertia. What do you want to change and why? Write down at least 3 pain points and why you want to move away from them.
Step 2. Find your “Towards” motivator. Write down at least 4 things you want to move towards and the reasons why. The strongest reasons are health related though (your insides), as opposed to vanity related (how you look), so think of health goals first. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look good or achieving that six pack, but vanity goals are lousy motivators and rarely keep people going for the long haul.
“Toward” motivators are more effective for keeping you going, but they aren’t as effective for getting started as “Away From” motivators. Pain will get you started more effectively because you are closer to it that that your toward goals. As you move away from pain though, that motivation energy starts to wane because you are feeling that pain less and less as you move away from it. This is where the “Toward” motivation comes in. Just when you’re feeling tendencies to go back to old habits because you don’t feel the pain as much, you get caught in the gravity of your “Toward” motivators because you are getting closer to them, so they help keep you on track.
Step 3. Set your goals. This starts with a specific realistic end goal and achievement date. Then break that up into smaller measurable marker goals along the way to celebrate as you achieve them. More on this at the workshop…
Step 4. Create accountability. Find a partner or a team and then make it public. A partner or group to take your journey with will serve as your support team. Then making your resolution public to as many people as possible strengthens many nerve pathways in your brain that help you stay motivated. Most people keep their resolutions secret in case they fail, or they tell very few people (especially those whom they know are also likely to fail).
Step 5. Commit. Make a decision to be “all in” this time, starting January 1st. If you build in “fudge factors” or commit to anything less than 100%, don’t bother with this 7 step formula. It just won’t work. If you are ready to really make changes though, once and for all, this will work like a charm and it will be permanent. Here’s how it works:
- If you commit to these steps 70% of the time (i.e. being “good” most of the time, but allowing some room to “party” or for “special occasions”), you can expect to achieve about 30% of the resolution results you had hoped for.
- If you commit to these steps 80% of the time, you can expect about 40% results.
- If you commit to these steps 90% of the time, you can expect about 60% results.
- If you commit to these steps 100% of the time though, you can expect about 110% results because they will most likely be even better than what you had hoped for.
Can you see how the curve in the chart above gets steeper as the level of commitment increases? This is why it is so important to decide whether you are truly ready or not before you start. If you’re not, you will find yourself just as frustrated as you have been in previous years.
So now you might be having some of the following thoughts:
- “This might work for you PJ, but I’m not a nazi like you, nor do I want to be.”
- “I want to have fun some times and be able to eat what I like every once in a while.”
- “I don’t want to get to the point where I get sick from eating a hamburger or something.”
- “This might work for me, but my family needs to eat their thing, so I can’t clean my cupboards out completely.”
I’ve got answers to all these and more, so be sure to come to the workshop to hear the easy solutions!
Step 6. Clean out your cupboards and start fresh with the recipes on hardbodcafe.com. Throw away (or give to the food bank) every ingredient that isn’t on hardbodcafe.com and restock with ingredients that are on hardbodcafe.com. If this sounds like too big of a step, then refer to step 5 and decide if you really want to get results once and for all, or if you want to keep farting around like you have every year so far.
Step 7. Brain train every day. Start with this technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGjYYDcNH8k and then get access to about 30 more at the workshop!
It takes 21 days to wire a new habit into the brain. At that point, it gets much easier. Then after about 77 days, it becomes virtually automatic. In other words, this might take some effort for the first 3 weeks, but after it’s wired in (especially using the brain training techniques to make that process easier), you will really start to fall into your stride. Then after 77 days, you’ll wonder why you ever though it was challenging at all!
You will find these seven steps to be a much easier plan than you have tried before, so come to the workshop to learn more about them and to get the tools, tips and tricks to make them achievable and most importantly, PERMANENT, so you achieve your New Year’s resolution(s) once and for all!
1/19/16 update:
The workshop went great! For those of you who missed it, here is a PDF link to the workbook: Resolution Revolution Workshop Workbook
And here is the video of the workshop:
Enjoy!
P.S. If you would like to be added to the Facebook support group of people who attended the workshop or have watched the above video and have filled out their workbook, just let me know via email: pj@xgym.com.