If you’ve already given up on them, the answer is probably no. Carefully considering the emotions behind your New Year’s Resolutions (and yes, resolving not to make resolutions this year is still a resolution!) is key to making the most of the year ahead, and few of us do it right.
Whether you threw out a half-baked idea the first time someone asked you what changes you were planning on making in 2019 or spent hours online researching the psychology of habit-forming, it’s likely that you didn’t spend enough time considering your resolutions from the standpoint of emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence includes the ability to recognize, understand, appropriately express, and regulate your emotions. An emotionally intelligent resolution is one that takes into account your overall emotional landscape — what truly makes you happy?
What can you do to minimize or appropriately vent negative emotions? An emotionally intelligent approach to pursuing happiness is not hedonistic or short-sighted – it considers your overall and long-term happiness. It’s not about staying comfortable or avoiding difficult situations – if anything, emotionally intelligent people are more likely to take risks or ‘power through’ difficult situations because recognizing a negative emotion is the first step towards moving past it.
Here are the main things to consider when evaluating resolutions from an emotionally intelligent perspective.
How do you feel before, during, and after?
This is one of the most important things to consider when trying to build or break a habit. The simple truth is, the first thirty seconds of most meaningful activities is never going to feel as fun and easy as the first thirty seconds of, say, playing a game on your phone or eating junk food. The mistake many people make – and the mistake successful people learn to avoid – is using this start-up period as your mental barometer of how much you want to do an activity. Emotionally intelligent people aren’t just aware of their feelings while doing an activity – they’re aware of how they feel the rest of the day.
Making New Year’s Resolutions – and keeping them – is a long-term project, and you have to think about it from a long-term perspective. Do I, in the actual moment, enjoy working out? Not always. My trainer, Devon Lévesque, posts Instagram stories of how burnt out his clients are during and after workouts, and I’m no exception. But on days that I don’t work out, I notice that I’m more likely to feel stressed and anxious, I have less energy, and my overall mood is less positive than it is on days that I have worked out.
Do it for you
One of the easiest ways to guess that someone is making a resolution that they’re not going to keep is to ask what motivates them to make the change. If the answer begins with “My sister/spouse/parents say I need to…,” you don’t have to keep listening to know that, come February, that resolution is out the window.
This is different from doing something ‘for’ someone else in a way that’s really for you, like “I want to get fit to be able to play with my kid” or “I want to spend more time with my partner” – these motivations aren’t contingent on the other person’s continued investment in – or even knowledge of – that resolution.
It’s the noticing that’s key – resolutions are extremely personal, and the only way to succeed is to be hyperaware of what works for you and what doesn’t.
Trust that you know yourself
There are many different factors to consider when making New Year’s resolutions, or deciding whether to make them at all. There are plenty of articles on the latest science of habit-building (and negative habit-breaking) – is it better to choose a smaller, more achievable goal, or to get ambitious? To start as soon as you decide on making a change, or wait for a pivotal moment like the beginning of the new year or a birthday? To focus on making an ‘unbroken chain’ of habits, or take one day at a time? But the reason these points (and many others) are still being rehashed year after year is that there’s no real right answer.
For some people, starting small allows them to build the confidence to build up to a larger lifestyle change, while for others, quitting cold turkey is the only thing that works. Sometimes focusing on the unbroken chain is helpful, and sometimes it encourages throwing your goals out the window at the first misstep. Sometimes telling people about your goals creates a measure of accountability, and sometimes it reduces your motivation because you think of talking about a goal as making progress.
The only real way to make a resolution that sticks is to stay aware of your own thoughts and feelings throughout the process of trying to make a change – or decide on a change to make – and figure out what works for you.
May 2020 be, in addition to resolutions, a year of achievements and successes.
Success lies in you.
Happy New Year!
Original article: Are Your New Year’s Resolutions Emotionally Intelligent? (Forbes)
