Happy New Year, everyone.
Yes, just as we did with 1984, 1999 and 2001, we’ve reached a milestone that was once only conceivable in the realm of science fiction (or in the case of 1999, pop music). Can you believe Y2K was ten years ago!
So how many of you made at least one New Year’s Resolution? Go ahead—raise your hands high. Now, how many of you have already broken your New Year’s Resolution?
I don’t like to think of myself as a negative kind of guy, but my guess is most of those hands are still up, right?
Ah, the New Year’s Resolution, that annual rite of pounding yet another nail of failure into the coffin of our self-esteem.
What is it with New Year’s Resolutions that makes them so hard to keep? After all, it’s a good idea, in theory. As the year comes to a close we naturally reflect on what we have or have not accomplished over the past year. Jan. 1 is a new beginning, a chance to start with a clean slate. What better time to rid ourselves of undesirable habits or behaviors?
Maybe so many of us fail because we attempt to change some of the most deeply-rooted behaviors we possess when we make a New Year’s Resolution. I’d venture a guess that the two most popular choices are quitting smoking and losing weight. And we don’t prepare ourselves for the real work involved in modifying those behaviors.
If you ask someone who has kicked a drug or alcohol problem, he or she may tell you that one of the most important parts of a successful substance abuse treatment program is to learn to recognize and avoid situations that trigger old habits. Sometimes that even means cutting off old friends and finding new people with whom to associate.
If we took quitting smoking or losing weight that seriously, maybe we’d be more successful.
And of the two, food addiction is probably the harder to break. If you are addicted to alcohol or drugs, you can avoid your enemy. You can dump the booze down the drain and flush the drugs down the toilet and stay away from places where you may be tempted to imbibe. But if you are fat and want to lose weight, you can’t throw out all of your food and avoid grocery stores and restaurants. You still have to eat.
Also, there’s no immediate gratification in dieting. If you decide to quit smoking, you can quit. You wake up the next day and, voila! You’re a non-smoker. And every day you don’t smoke or don’t use drugs or alcohol adds strength to your resolve. But if you’re obese and you commit to losing weight, you wake up the next day and you’re still fat—and the day after that, and the day after that. In fact, it may take weeks before you see any tangible signs of success. It takes a lot of will-power to keep up that resolve!
And your friends and co-workers—even family members—may undermine you.
It’s really ironic: they wouldn’t offer a highball to someone in AA; they wouldn’t wave a line of cocaine under the nose of someone trying to kick a drug habit, but if you’re trying to lose weight people will push food at you left and right. “Oh come on. You can have a taste.” “One cookie won’t hurt.” “Here, eat the rest of my French fries. I’m full and I don’t want to waste them.” Even strangers can make it difficult. Waiters and waitresses will push desserts on fat people much more than on thin people.
A Weight Watchers™ ad I saw on TV had a poignant message. We eat socially but diet privately. That makes a lot of sense. If you want to be successful in losing weight—or quitting smoking—don’t keep it a secret. Enlist the support of your friends and family. And call them out if they unwittingly (or deliberately!) try to sabotage your efforts.
One more thing to consider: How do you reward yourself when you succeed? If you’ve always used food as a reward or celebration for a job well done, you may need to find an alternative. You can take the money you’ve saved by not smoking and treat yourself to something special or go on a trip. But when you succeed in losing weight, what is your reward? So you’ve lost those 20 pounds—how are you going to celebrate? With a whole cheesecake?
We’ll probably never get away from making difficult New Year’s resolutions, but if we plan well, we can give ourselves a fighting chance to succeed. Happy 2010! Best wishes to you in all your endeavors!
