By Lauren Richardson
“It is never too late to be who you might have been.”
A few years ago, I decided to stop setting New Year's resolutions. Time and time again, I had failed to achieve any of the goals that I’d hoped to achieve. I wasn’t sure what I was doing wrong . . . Maybe there were too many goals? Or maybe they were just too hard? Every year I would adjust my strategy, until one year I decided to set only one goal. It was VERY simple and didn't take much time, effort, or even money. And I STILL didn’t do it. After that, I just threw in the towel altogether.
It seems like every time the new year rolls around, friends, family, even businesses produce a lot of hype about how this year is going to be different and how they are going to accomplish their XYZ goal. Throughout the month of January, there is so much buzz and excitement about what is coming in the future.
From my perspective, it seemed that most people had all their ducks in a row and that they were on track to change the world, while I just stood still. For a while, it felt pretty lonely thinking I was the only one without enough discipline to reach my goals.
One day while surfing the web, I stumbled across some statistics about gym memberships, fitness goals, and New Year’s resolutions. I learned that in a sample of about 400 U.S. adults, 48% of people set the new year’s goal to work out in 2022 (Armstrong, 2022). However, another source stated in 2019 how many people tend to quit such goals: “4% of [a sample of] new year gym members quit by the end of January, 14% quit by the end of February, and 50% quit within 6 months” (IHRSA, 2019, as cited in Rizzo, 2021). Gym member new year resolutions statistics section). So, if this data was correct, then I wasn’t alone when it came to setting goals and eventually giving up on them.
When I recognized that many others fell short of their goals, it helped to alleviate the feeling of being alone. It also provided an opportunity to develop hope and openness to possibilities I had not considered before, helping me to reach my potential.
The book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear (2018) teaches how to cultivate personal growth, not just by setting goals, but by developing habits and making small adjustments each day to bring us closer to where we want to end up. The idea is to “get 1% better each day.”
So, what exactly is personal growth? It is the process of reaching your full potential, nourishing strengths, and navigating challenges and setbacks with the mentality and understanding that there is greatness within you.
Once we’ve decided to embark on our journey of personal growth, it is critical to be self-aware and mindful of how we treat ourselves. What is our self-talk? Do we have Automatic Negative Thoughts (A.N.T.s) that play through our head when we fall short of the growth we wish to achieve? A.N.T.s are destructive words that come into our head, without thinking more of a reaction when something happens that we deem undesirable.
In cases like these, it is important to be kind to ourselves. Practicing self-compassion comes into play when we fall short of what we are striving to accomplish. Some people think that they need to be hard on themselves. However, research says that “being compassionate to oneself is associated with emotional resilience and psychological well-being” (Warren et al., 2016, p. 19). Rather than being judgmental and critical, in order to have personal growth, we need to offer compassion to ourselves and treat ourselves like we would treat a friend.
In addition to self-compassion, when we are able to be mindful of our choices, actions, and habits, it will help us be intentional and recognize the habits we need to change and the underlying currents that pull us in the direction opposite of where we intend to go.
As we practice self-awareness and self-compassion, we will more easily have the resilience needed to develop small habits to nurture our personal growth. We will be able to cultivate a growth mindset and move towards our goals.
“Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort.
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REFERENCES
Armstrong, Martin. (2022, January 11). Top U.S. New Year's resolutions for 2022. Statista. https://www.statista.com/chart/26577/us-new-years-resolutions-gcs/
Clear, James. (2018). Atomic habits: An easy & proven way to build good habits & break bad ones. Avery.
Rizzo, Nicholas. (2021, October 12). 77 Gym membership statistics, facts, and trends [2020/2021]. RunRepeat. https://runrepeat.com/gym-membership-statistics#g ym-member-new-year-resolution-statistics
Warren, R., Smeets, E., & Neff, K. (2016). Being compassionate to oneself is associated with emotional resilience and psychological well-being. Current Psychiatry, 15(12), 19-32. https://self-compassion.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Self-Criticism.pdf