What’s your New Year's Evolution?

We’re ditching New Year’s resolutions for 2022. Before you scoff in disbelief, let us explain why. The truth is they usually end up leading to more disappointment and making you feel worse in the long run. Why would you want that? 

Instead, we’re taking a new approach: New Year’s Evolution. 

Your New Year’s Evolution (NYE) is the one thing you'd like to slowly, gradually improve for your physical, mental, or social wellbeing (over 3-6 months). There’s a lot of evidence to support this approach, especially after the past couple of years.

New Year’s Resolutions are a Terrible Idea

New Year’s resolutions do have good intentions but are not so good in practice. A study found that 80% of resolutions are abandoned within the first couple of months into the new year. Resolutions aren’t built in a way where they can harness motivation to help us change our long-term behavior. 

A Cornell and University of Chicago psychology study found that people are mainly focused on immediate reward and gratification when it comes to their resolutions. If you don’t see immediate results or get an immediate reward (which you won’t), you’re less likely to stick with your New Year’s resolutions for very long. 

Resolutions are extremely demoralizing. We set such big goals as we enter a new year in an attempt to completely reinvent ourselves, which isn’t realistic at all. Creating goals that are massive and unattainable only leads us to failure, which causes anxiety and stress. When you have high hopes but fail quickly, you can become demotivated to adopt longer term changes. 

Change Happens Incrementally

To successfully introduce a change to your routine or behavior, it may help to understand that such  changes happen incrementally. Behaviors and habits aren’t changed easily because, psychologically speaking, they’ve served you well in the past. They’re embedded deep within you and often serve more than one purpose. New Year resolutions tend to oversimplify changing behaviors, making it seem like an easy task. 

If you’re looking to make changes in the coming year, you need to consciously think about your incremental goals, or milestones, that will lead to your larger success. These smaller steps and more achievable goals can help resolve internal conflicts you may be struggling with. Change won’t happen overnight, but we can help ourselves by understanding why we’re resisting change, and giving ourselves smaller battles that are easier to win. 

Let’s leave New Year resolutions behind this year. We’ve all been managing an exorbitant amount of changes over the past two years. Give yourself some space and take a break from big changes. If you’re itching to do something or try something new, start small. A study found that over 72% of participants said they’d prefer more long-term, gradual improvements over creating a “new you” going into the new year. 

Instead of disrupting ourselves, let’s evolve. Dr. Sophie Lazarus, recommends being more aware of what we’re doing on a day-to-day basis. Making adjustments to do more things we enjoy and shifting our perspective. By being increasingly aware of the things that are going well, and focusing less on the unknowns, you can release some of your self-criticisms and negativity. 

Evaluating Your New Year’s Evolution (NYE)

So, what is the one thing you'd like to slowly, gradually improve for your physical, mental, or social wellbeing over the next 3 to 6 months? 

Before deciding this, let’s take inventory for each aspect of our wellbeing. The foundation of all wellbeing is your physical wellbeing, which enables everything else and means much more than just “being healthy.” It’s the cumulative result of your sleep, diet, physical activity, hygiene, and relaxation habits that either help or hinder your body’s performance. 

Physical wellbeing enables mental wellbeing. Your health has a massive impact on your anxiety, depression, stress tolerance, and cognitive agility. The American Heart Association states that physical and mental wellbeing are inextricably related and that physical activity can boost mental wellbeing. Mental wellbeing is defined as feeling good and functioning well. Being more active releases hormones in your brain that make you feel good and provide many other benefits.

Physical and mental wellbeing enable social wellbeing, which is our ability to create and maintain positive relationships and connections with others. Our mental wellbeing affects how we interact socially, and our narrative of where we fit in the world around us. Do you feel supported? Do you feel like you belong?  All of this ties back to your physical health as well, especially in regards to sleep and movement. Those of us with meaningful, positive social connections tend to be happier and healthier.  

Start Early 

The structure for your NYE is simple:

“I want to [your chosen activity] by [your ending milestone date over 3 to 6 months] because [your personal reasons for practicing this activity].”

At Mindcurrent we’ve noticed that even expert leaders and executives may need help structuring their NYE. If you find that’s true for you, please feel free to drop us a note at www.mindcurrent.io,  and we’ll help you construct your 2022 New Year’s Evolution.

For best results, start working on your NYE each morning for 15 to 30 mins. Your willpower is strongest in the first 3 hours of your day. Prioritize a little time to make some progress in the morning, and feel free to return to your chosen activity at lunchtime or after work, or even after dinner, depending on your schedule. Our data shows most of our successful users make some progress on their NYE (even if it’s very little) before 1 PM. 

Use Your Data

Set your NYE goals weekly, and increase your performance goals incrementally. Maybe even by 1 more minute each week. Remember, real change happens slowly, not all at once. Don’t worry if your progress feels slow or insignificant. By doing the small things you’re enabling much bigger things. Your patience, persistence, and dedication will pay off. 

Monitor your progress monthly. With 4 data points (from each week), you should see your pattern of improvement, factoring in skip days and even skip weeks. Should you shoot a little lower for next month to help yourself stay on-track? Or can you bring it up just one extra notch to test yourself next month? It’s important to set your goals monthly and monitor your progress weekly. We’re human – things can happen at any time that will set you back. Don’t be discouraged by omissions to compromises in any given week. Expect that to happen. This is an evolution, not a disruption. 

To hold yourself accountable to your goals you need to adjust them. If you don’t, you’ll stop believing in your ability to achieve them, or you’ll find them insignificant and abandon them. Whenever you can, share your monthly progress with someone who cares about you deeply. Avoid committing to future goals with your friends or family. Instead, report on what you’ve done and what you’ve learned. Replace ambition with pride and gratitude and you’ll find many more accountability buddies on your journey this year. 

Celebrate your small wins and be honest with yourself. By listening to your body and mind, you’ll notice your evolution as it’s happening. Which is what we call momentum. And momentum, more than anything else, drives motivation. 

Ready Player One? 

What’s your New Year’s Evolution?

This article was co-written by Zoe Stanley, who shares my passion for wellbeing, writing, and growth.