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Affirmations Archive

The new year has arrived, and traditionally, this is a time when many folks endeavor to create a list of resolutions they hope to achieve in the coming year. Often, people put pressure on themselves to make a lot of changes in a relatively short time. But before you get too carried away, I'd like to offer some suggestions on healthy goal setting (i.e. resolution writing) and steps to reach those goals.

First, let's look at your history of making resolutions and keeping them. If this resolution business has historically been a bust for you, then hopefully these suggestions may help to make at least one resolution you can keep for at least a limited amount of time in the coming year. If you have at least started to follow your resolutions in the past, but then stopped and gave up or let go, then you may want to review these suggestions, and look forward to the second part of the column in the new year on maintaining your work on reaching your goals. If you make goals, keep them, and go on to make new ones, you could be writing this column yourself perhaps, or hopefully will be affirmed for the steps you have taken to make the process a successful one.

Let's start with how to write healthy goals/resolutions:

1. Just to be radical, let me suggest it is okay to take all the pressure off and decide this year not to write any resolutions.
2. If there is some behavior you want to target, it is okay to start working on it now, or to wait until after the year begins.
3. Judge for yourself how much pressure it will create to target this behavior, and use common sense. If you have enough stress in your life at the moment, or are already on overload, consider your timing and give yourself permission to wait to target behavior change until your stress level decreases at least a little.
4. On the other hand, before delaying working on that goal, consider how dangerous this behavior is you want to change. The more dangerous or risky the behavior is, hopefully the more motivation you may have to work on changing it. Can you give yourself permission to be more fully aware of the danger or risk involved? Perhaps one achievable goal you may set is to acknowledge as fully as possible the danger/risk to yourself and one trusted person. You might accomplish this by writing your self a list of the risks and dangers. Give yourself a time frame (I will write a list of 10 risks and dangers by Dec. 31, and share it with one other person.)
5. It is very important for any goals you want to work on to be specific, measurable and achievable. (Oh, my, I have been writing managed care treatment plans for such a long time I now sound like a managed care company!! ) What this means is that you and/or another person could look at your goal and observe your behavior, and know absolutely whether you achieved the goal or not. For example, "I am going to stop smoking for the rest of my life" is much more vague and unachievable than "I will stop smoking when I wake up on January 2nd and will be able to report I have refused to smoke any cigarettes one week later." You may want to stop for the rest of your life, but the goal above is more specific, measurable, and hopefully achievable.
6. What helps goals to be achievable is to define clearly what resources you will use, and work to gather a support network of people who can help you. In the above example, you may choose to speak to your physician to determine what if any medical resources may assist you in reaching your goal; you may ask for referrals to stop smoking programs, or to a hypnotherapist who could provide you with additional tools beyond medicine. You might explore what alternative approaches may also be useful in reaching your goal. If you are already in therapy, you may choose to talk to your therapist to get her/his support too. Of course you want to talk to the significant people in your life, and ask for their support too.
7. Instead of making a whole long list of resolutions, you might choose instead to write only ONE, or perhaps two. Working on one goal follows the wisdom of 12-step programs that suggest "one step at a time". Making one change may be stressful enough. It is healthy to choose one target behavior, achieve that goal, and then you can decide whether to expand that goal, write a new goal related to the same behavior, or address an entirely different behavior.
8. Another important motivator to start the new behavior is to predict as best as you can what the rewards will be of meeting your goal. You can make this experience even stronger by giving yourself permission to picture yourself at the end of the given time period for making the change when you have in fact reached your goal. For example, picture yourself and how you'll feel after one full week of being sober from the drugs and/or alcohol you've been imbibing/inhaling/shooting up many times a week.
9. Give yourself praise every day you take another step (even one small tiny one) toward reaching your goal. If this is one of those days when you were unable to take even a small step, then offer yourself some compassion and patience, and remind yourself "I will give myself permission to take that next step in the morning". Beating yourself up for your failures rarely if ever leads to behavior change. Remember, you can choose to refuse to practice the worst of the behaviors you experienced from parents or authority figures who thought punishment makes you stronger. (It makes you weaker and more afraid.)
10. When you write your goals, state them in positive terms, versus negative terms. For example, "I won't be late to work" is much less effective a goal than "I will get to work on time every work day in January, except for the times inclement weather delays me". It is okay for your goal to have some flexibility included in it, as this one does.

So, are you ready? Best wishes for pleasurable and joyous holidays, whatever you celebrate, and a safe and healthy start to your new year!

Here's your affirmation for this month:
I can write one healthy new year's resolution and successfully reach my target goal in the new year.