How to make personal changes to achieve long term goals
Johaloha shares tips on how to make sure your New Year resolutions will be long lasting.
As the end of the year approaches, it is usual for thoughts to turn towards New Year resolutions, which if we’re being honest often fall by the wayside after a few months, which we attribute to lack of willpower or commitment. Leaving us wondering why most long-term goals are so difficult to achieve and if it is possible to make personal changes that will help us achieve our long-term goals.
“Old habits eat good intentions for lunch. Change your habits so you can change your outcomes.” -Darren Hardy.
People can change
The first step is to understand that setting goals is a means of working towards more positive behaviours. It is not a lack of commitment or willpower which prevents peoples from achieving personal change, we just need to learn the correct techniques for successfully setting long-term goals. One technique is by creating good habits that stick, otherwise known as ‘sticky habits.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit“ – Will Duran
Forming healthy habits for life
Habits are behaviours that we have built over time and carry out automatically without even realising it. Changing your unhealthy habits and building new healthy habits takes time and commitment. However once they have stuck, you will be able to stick to your New Year resolutions, achieve new goals and improve your energy and give you a better quality of your life.
One of the Johaloha’s areas of specialism is teaching people that adopting healthier habits can improve their life. By providing you with the tools and knowledge to help you reinvent a healthier life, by creating healthier habits that last. You can change the person you are now, so you can become the person you want to be. Click here to find out about our course “Healthy Habits”
“Always be a first-rate version of yourself and not a second-rate version of someone else.” ― Judy Garland
Here are 5 tips to help you adopt healthier habits that can change your life:
Tip 1. Understand the difference between a resolution and a goal
“A goal is a mental representation of a desired end state that a person is committed to approaching or avoiding” – Höchli B, Brügger A, Messner C
Resolutions are promises to ourselves to never undertake the forbidden behaviour or to adhere to a new regime. The problem is that they demand perfection but if you slip up, this can result in unhealthy feelings of failure. Whereas, by setting a goal you are working towards an end result and there is no expectation of instant success, it is acknowledged that the process takes time and effort.
Tip 2. Change for yourself, not to please other people
Decide what you want to achieve and make changes that are relevant to your life and wellbeing. If you try to affect change by adopting habits to please other people, this will not be a good starting point for making new healthy habits that will stick. For example, if you join a gym under pressure from your friends, this is not a decision you have chosen for yourself. You can be inspired by others, but your new habits shouldn’t stress you out, you should enjoy them.
“Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky
Tip 3. Get into the right mindset
As we mentioned earlier, building new healthy habits takes time and it starts in your mind, first you need to overcome procrastination. The next step is to learn how to be kind to yourself, if your internal monologue is constantly self-critical, this will colour your thoughts and self-belief, and will affect the choices you make.
You shouldn’t define yourself on past experiences. If you give yourself a break and realise that just because you have failed once, you will not necessarily fail again, you will be able to overcome failure and procrastination.
Tip 4. Concentrate on one habit
A positive mindset is essential but it’s also important not to be overconfident, as this could be overwhelming and counterproductive. For example, it would be too confusing to try to learn two new languages at the same time, instead you would learn one at a time. The same theory works when learning new behaviours, at work, within your family, fitness or making time for self-reflection. You need to make sure the first habit has stuck before you embark upon another.
Tip 5. Little by little
Changing your life is a huge task and once you have won the mental battle to stop procrastinating, you will be in the right mind frame to make changes and develop healthy habits. According to Psychology Today, people can change, and the most effective way is to follow a method called, ‘go slow, to go fast,’ which is done by making minimal viable changes.
It is easier to implement small changes that won’t need much effort but will have a significant impact on your life. For example, if you want to do more exercise you can start with 5-minute walk every morning, and then once the habit has formed you can build up to a more intensive routine. Once you get started, the momentum will build before you notice it. Each achievement will give you more confidence to break old patterns of behaviour and to adopt new healthy habits.
Now you have set your goals and put them in motion, it’s crucial to give yourself some slack and to acknowledge that no one does anything perfectly the first time, it takes practice. Don’t compare your progress to other people’s journeys.
Be patient, progress takes time. If you fail, so what, just try again!
Learn more about how to change yourself
Ulla’s passion is to see people grow by helping them find their way to what they want to change. She has extensive experience in both helping others and changing herself.
If you would like to find out more about making changes in your life by setting goals and adopting healthy habits, send us a message by clicking on the link below or contact Ulla Lilliehook at morejoy@johaloha.com
