The start of a new year is, of course, the perfect time for
a fresh start. There’s the metaphorical power, plus the numerical ease of
counting days and months of success from Jan 1. But balanced against the
celebratory excess and indulgence of the holiday season, New Year’s resolutions
can, sadly, tend towards abstinence.
This year I’ll stop smoking. This year I’ll lose weight.
This year I’ll quit Diet Coke. This year I’ll be the better, purer, stronger
version of myself. Better and stronger is awesome, but here’s a proposition:
get there without having to tell yourself “no.”
Deprivation is nasty stuff. It’s woven into the Puritan work
ethic that’s woven into so much of American culture—the idea that abstinence is
virtue, that willpower is spiritual strength. Sure, there are bad things in
life, and it’s best to stay away from them, but an ethic of deprivation is a
slippery slope to a life of empty asceticism.
Deprivation is also often a recipe for nasty relapses. When
you assign yourself a new zone of self-control, unless you’re doing work to
replenish your mental energy, you will run out of “strength.” Think of a rubber
band pulled and pulled until it snaps. That snap is your slip, and the tighter
you’ve pulled yourself, the more it’s going to hurt. (If you’ve ever gone on a
restrictive diet and, after hours or weeks, found yourself bingeing in a way
you never would’ve before the diet, you know this feeling well.)
Okay, so: how can you achieve your goals without
telling yourself “no”? Most of the time, it’s a simple flip:
- Stop eating junk food. → Eat more vegetables.
- Lose weight. → Do Couch to 5k or Go to yoga class once a
week.
- Stop overcommitting socially. → Reserve one night a week to
stay in.
- Quit Diet Coke → Drink more water.
- Stop looking at Twitter in bed. → Read a book for ten
minutes before bed every night.
They’re not one-to-one matches—you can eat junk food and vegetables,
and running won’t necessarily make you lose weight. But these positively framed
resolutions get at the core value you’re trying to develop in yourself by
focusing on adding a new habit instead of subtracting an old one, whether it’s
fitness, peacefulness, or hydration.
Even if your resolution is truly, at its heart, about
stopping a bad behavior, it’s hugely useful to couple stopping the bad thing
with the addition of a new, positive habit—a yes in addition to
the no. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself at your 3pm smoke break just
looking around with nothing to do and an awful craving. It’s easier to replace
a habit than to erase one. Think about where, when, and how your old habit
happened, and be prepared with a replacement—a thing you will do to
replace the thing you won’t.
Remember that resolutions of any kind take energy to turn
into long-lasting and secure patterns. Be gentle with yourself, and you’ll be
able to do great things.