Why I Hate the New Year

I hate January 1 st . It’s a shame, really. For most semi-normal people, New Year’s day is a bright spot of glittering optimism, a day ringing of resolutions and merry little goals. It beckons men and women to join in, glass in hand, with the huzzahs of “This is MY year!” And I see you, I do. I’m peeking out of my closed blinds, watching you dance your lively do-si-do around that maypole of resolutions. I see you filling social media with new words and ideas, breathing freshness, zest, and life into the stale reality of “That was so last year.” And, gosh, I WISH I wanted to could join you. But me? Well, I’m sitting here on a gray, dismal January day with a tummyache from eating too many leftover cookies and feeling the financial burn from half a paycheck, too many bills, and having both car registrations due at the same time (how did that happen?). In the bright yellow of your sunbeams, all I can feel is shlumpy, slouchy, mismatched gray. The gray of my new year? Change . Even writing it makes me want to sigh a giant “Mehhblahh” and slide off of my couch. For some, change is an imperturbable cloud of heavy fog through which it is impossible to navigate. It’s an off-putting shade of the ugliest gray, a hue that sits alone, impossible to complement. Change can be (quite literally) the very worst. And here’s why: It’s so blankety-blank hard. The big life changes, the breaking out of our safe and secure environments, the pressure of competition from other fellow changers. It’s so uncomfortable. It’s scary. It requires us to face significant fears: commitment, giving up control, or admitting the need for change. Some psychologists have suggested that we as humans even harbor a natural aversion to change: We are resistant to it, and we fight it, all scrappy and dirty-like, to make sure we aren’t forced to bring that gray our way. And unless we’re really ready to move forward determinedly to stick with necessary personal progress (something I’ve struggled with even up to this very keyboard stroke), we’ll stay peeking through our blinds, clad in excuses, until this year becomes last and next year becomes now. Nothing, not a figurative date of resolutions (no, not even a “New Year”) or another person’s well-intentioned you-can-do-its will keep those goals sustained in the long run unless we learn how to change our perception of, well, how to change . What we need are the specific How-tos, so grab a pen and jot down some notes. Saturating the world of psychology and personal behavior modification are thousands of resources ranging from scholars to doctors to creditable authors who explain how to create lasting change. Among them, David Watson and Roland Tharp, co-authors of Self-Directed Behavior: Self-Modification for Personal Adjustment , offer some important advice: Get comfortable with the uncomfortable Just as we chatted about earlier, perpetuating lasting change requires the necessity of breaking through mental barriers of what was “once” and what is “now.” Health and fitness guru Jillian Michaels is queen of challenging the invisible line of the comfort zone: “If you don’t get uncomfortable,” she says, “nothing’s going to ever change.” Truer words and all that, Jill. Except she always tells me that in the same part of my workout video when I’m crumpled in a heap on the floor. In order to get comfortable with the uncomfortable, we need to break down our fears into tangible elements. Here’s an example: My four-year-old daughter notoriously catapults herself into a right old state when the sight of whatever disgusting thing I’ve made for dinner graces her meal plate. I was tired of it and had better things to do (like watch Call the Midwives, duh) than to make a dinner that my daughter would not eat. Instead of starving her (‘cause we all frown on that), I invited her to participate in the meal-making. She saw, poured, measured, handled, and stirred every component of that night’s meal, and when the time came to sample her handiwork, she licked the bowl because she thought it was thumbs-up delicious. My point: In order for my little darlin’ to become familiar with and less afraid of her nightly meal, we had to break it apart into recognizable and unintimidating objects. When she saw that nothing was so scary after all, she became more willing to slowly (very, very slowly) try new things. Here’s where to start: Take the change you want to make and break it apart into hopes and fears, advantages and disadvantages, benefits and detriments. Separate your “ingredients” until they become components recognizable to you. When you feel like the pros of changing outweigh the cons, this list now has your specific fears and disadvantages that you can begin to tackle. Begin with the easier tasks and attack the more difficult ones after you’ve experienced some success. Those who make lists such as these, asserts Watson and Tharp, are more likely to be successful in their pursuit of establishing lasting change. Increase desirable behavior For most of my young adult life, I avoided sloshing through the behavior changes necessary to create lasting change because, well, it wasn’t as easy as it sounded. There was no “delete” button to erase the existing behaviors that needed changed. No mouse to drag negative behavior to the Recycle Bin, no “Be Kind, Rewind” app, and definitely no “behavioral vacuum” to suck up crappy learned behavior. Well, if we can’t immediately throw out the bad, how will we ever eventually change? In order to eliminate negative behavior, explains Watson and Tharp, we need to increase desirable behavior in the place of the undesirable. Here’s their example: If I want to stop procrastinating (which I’m not sure I want to do yet – I’m so good at it), saying “I have to stop procrastinating” (no matter how emphasized have is) will never actually replace the negative behavior. Instead, I will need to increase my desirable behaviors: Planning out work ahead of time; working out goals, sub-goals, and plans; beginning slowly and steadily to accomplish tasks ahead of time; assigning priorities to my work and then doing it in order; and planning how to deal with distractions. In this case, I could try fruitlessly to vacuum up, or eradicate the procrastination, but instead, I should spend my time wisely increasing my desirable behaviors. Doing so will automatically decrease my detrimental behaviors. Fascinating, huh? Get this: When you begin to focus on positive behaviors, your mind will begin to replace the negative with those behaviors that are healthy and productive. Powerful stuff, huh? You don’t need a Dyson for that. Observe others And what better way to find out how to increase positive behavior than by observing others? There is immense value in observing people who are good at what you want to be good at. And I mean it the way it sounds: Creepy people-watchin’. A few months ago, I had set up post at my local gym and had finally gotten into a healthy rhythm of weight-lifting, but there were lots of new machines and intimidating exercises I had yet to try, and I was daunted by the thought. Enter Supacoolgirl. Supacoolgirl was a pro. She was a champion. I watched her for weeks all stalker-like through the breaks in the weight machines, watched her excellent form, determination, and resiliency. I knew I had to talk to her to become better. When I did, I asked her specifics, ways to increase my abilities and confidence in the weight room. She helped me break through a barrier of change that I had thought was impossible. It’s amazing what can happen when we observe the actions of those around us who are successful at any given task. We see how people are good listeners, how they are good at exercising. We see the patient parents, the motivated friends, the compassionate neighbors. And to think, all we have to do is watch. Practice the power of “I can” In the classic children’s tale “The Little Engine That Could,” a small, inexperienced blue engine believed in herself and pulled a heavy load of toys and food up a steep mountain rail, all the while thinking, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” Spoiler alert: She summited the top of the mountain, and as she glided down the mountain having accomplished a difficult task, she thought to herself: “I knew I could, I knew I could, I knew I could.” There is power in the “I can.” It’s called self-efficacy, or the idea that one can overcome a difficult situation to produce a positive outcome based on beliefs about his/her personal competence. In other words, if we believe in ourselves, the odds of succeeding are much, much higher. This is resiliency at its finest and is “critical to the success of healthy behavior changes,” explains Kate Hefferon and Ilona Boniwell, authors of Positive Psychology. We cannot begin to establish lasting change in our personal development until we can believe in ourselves. Write it on your mirror, post it on your walls. Shout it out while jammin’ to an old-school boom box: I CAN DO IT. It’s not just a cheesy, trite reference to the hit 1996 film Space Jam (as in I hit myself so hard after I watched it). Whether you believe you can fly, touch the sky, or soar through that open door, a huge step in lasting change is self-efficacy: believing you can. Slow down Sometimes, a new goal or lifestyle change is so exciting that we can hardly wait to, well, finish it. We want the results so so so super-fast: We want patience LIKERIGHTNOW, or we throw away every ounce of sugar in one fell, chocolate-covered swoop, or we get ready for tomorrow’s workout by sleeping in our workout clothes because, duh, we can do anything in active wear. However, changing behaviors too rapidly is super detrimental to our amazing but precarious cognitive systems. Prominent psychologist E. Thomas Dowd explains that our brain and its constructs quite appropriately guards itself against too-rapid change because “rapid change can threaten the very sense of self upon which our identity is built.” Yikes! The more important the change, the longer the time required to allow for it to be sustainable and lasting. So simmer down, feisty. Your identity is super important, you know. Take your time to develop healthy and attainable habits. Master those. Celebrate your progress. Then master another healthy, attainable habit. Your road to success isn’t a straight-shot freeway with radio a-blarin’. It’s a spiral of mastery built upon mastery. Edge up slowly but confidently, and you’ll make some real success. Expect mistakes My six-year-old daughter began piano this year. It was, sigh, a trying time for all of us. From what I understand, she believed (bless her) that she would be able to sit down and produces odes and symphonies and Ray Charles-style jazz sessions. Sadly (but not unexpectedly), this was not the case, and I heard frequent discords as she slammed her frustrated hands down onto the keys, exasperated that she was messing up the simplest of melodies. After several lessons, lots of wincing, and dramatic threats to quit, she and I had a chat and came up with a mantra to repeat before and during each lesson: “I’m going to make mistakes, and that’s okay.” What about you? Will you make mistakes? Is that okay? We might miss a day at the gym or yell at our kids. We may lose our patience and complain about our spouses. We might throw up our hands and eat half of a pineapple upside-down cake (that may or may not have just happened). Habits ingrained into our minds for years (or lifetimes) are hard to shake. Plan to make mistakes. The question isn’t “Will I make mistakes?” but should be instead, “How will I respond to the mistakes I make?” According to Watson and Tharp, “mistakes are a disaster ONLY if they cause you to stop trying to change.” So, when you’re ready, friends, open those dusty blinds and let in the light. Feel the new electricity in the air, the sweet smell of motivation. Grab your iPod full of Taylor Swift songs and get uncomfortable. Go at your own pace. Make mistakes. Shake it off. Keep trying. Own it. You possess the power within to make and sustain lasting change, so go get it. Connect with us on Facebook!

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