New Year’s Resolutions are a model for failure. The annual tradition of making resolutions are abandoned a whopping 80% of the time by February 14th. How do we as benefits/wellness professionals respond to these overwhelming odds?
Below are three solutions, ranked by how easy they are to execute.
1. Throw up your hands and do nothing, figuring that this is some kind of annual ritual like trick-or-treating and hot dog eating contests that you are powerless to stop or improve.
2. Coach your people to avoid resolutions altogether, so they might avoid the inevitable failure.
3. Create a structure that supports success.
I expect that the first solution is practiced most often, with the idea being that if you don’t try, you won’t fail. The second solution is a more active form of the first, because it assumes that the ritual is irredeemably flawed. The third solution is the toughest to achieve, but the one that provides the best long term outcomes.
Manage The Expectations Bar
People need support to get started with anything. Part of this support involves just knowing what to do. And although the advice to “eat right and exercise” seems dirt-simple, the intellectual noise in this world creates conflicting claims about almost everything. This, in turn, creates confusion that can leave a person hesitant to try something on their own.
On a more fundamental level, some folks are more comfortable following simple step-wise instructions to make sure they do the process correctly. It’s like cooking from a recipe that lays out every detail of what do add, when, and how. If you’re not a cook already, this kind of guidance is what you need.
So if you were to create a structure for employees — a recipe for resolution success this year — what would that look like?
First, it would need to be step-wise, with clear guidance on the 1-2-3 of it all. Next it must be simple so that most people in most circumstances can execute the instructions. And finally, for our ADHD culture, it should be doable in a short amount of time. In essence, the structure need to direct a series of interim goals created as via points en route to the longer term end.
This is a framework that can facilitate success by making things simpler, and by managing the expectations bar in the near term. Instead of creating a goal of running a marathon, create a goal of getting off the couch. Instead of creating a wanting to make all your own food all the time, how about just making your food once per week.
Once the simple short term goal is met, participants can then move their goal up a notch and have another manageable bar to reach. This keeps the focus on simple next steps, in order to reach their ultimate destination in the long term.
