Happy new year! A time of new year’s resolutions for lots of people. These are good in many ways as it is like setting goals – things you want to achieve or things to make you feel better. Last year my new year’s resolution was always to eat dinner at the dinner table. I think that lasted until September, so I did well as only 8% of new year’s resolutions are kept until the end of the year. I will try harder this year! I also set a goal of hitting 5 million steps across the year (by doing approximately 14,000 steps per day). I will let you know if I did this in the comments on Instagram and Facebook!
As 80% of resolutions are already broken by the end of February you need to really want to make your resolution stick and form a new habit.
One of the best ways of making your resolution stick is to do something called habit stacking – where you put the new thing onto something else you already do, which makes it easier to stick to. We recommend James Clear’s Habit Stacking (available online or at all good bookshops!) which talks about this. Examples of this could be wanting to lose weight and cleaning your teeth directly after dinner (making you less likely to eat more), or wanting to get more steps in, so walking round the block when you get out of your car at home before you go in. You could also use a delayed gratification method and tell yourself you can’t have your coffee until you’ve done 20 minutes of walking.
Another way of making new habits stick is to get an accountability buddy. This works for walking, going to the gym etc. We have also found that for many neurodiverse people, mirroring is a good way to get things done. So if you continually put off your emails, or going to the dentist, agree to do your emails in the same room as a friend, or book an appointment for the dentist at the same time as someone else you know.
If your new year’s resolution is to get tidy and declutter, but you haven’t started by February, let us know and we’ll come and help you! And if your resolution is something else, let us know what it is!
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