A new year a new you

The festive season is over and New Year’s resolutions are still very much intact in the early weeks of January – but how many women will stick to their guns as 2010 unfolds?

According to a recent British survey*, figures show that an alarming 87% of women are unable to kick bad habits and too easily give up before January is through, blaming lack of time as the main contributing factor.

1st for Women’s managing director, Robyn Farrell, says that when trying to achieve too many resolutions at once, one’s focus and energies are spread too thin. It’s much less effective to kick many habits simultaneously. With only a certain amount of motivation and focus, women need to set themselves realistic goals so they don’t run out of steam. Resolutions are also often too vague, for example ‘I am going to save money’. With no concrete plans and details put in place, women immediately set themselves up for failure.

When questioned about resolutions, the top three answers came as no surprise. Losing that festive season flab came in first with 55% of women wanting to stick to a diet, 40% of women claimed to want to save money in 2010 and the usual suspect, joining a gym resonated with 25% of women.

Of the 87% of those who said they never stick to their resolutions, a quarter said it generally took up to a month to quit, 17% gave up within two weeks, 13% threw in the towel after a week and 8% only managed to stick to their resolutions for 24 hours.

However, Farrell says that sticking to New Year’s resolutions is not an unobtainable goal and can be made simple and stress free.

Farrell concludes with advice on how women can stick to their New Year’s resolutions:

• Pick six habits you’d like to change for 2010.
• Pick one of the six habits to start with.
• Commit as publicly as possible to creating this new habit in 2 months.
• Break the habit into eight baby steps, starting with one ridiculously easy step. Example: if wanting to get out of debt, the first step is to write up your debts on a piece of paper and stick them on the fridge and look at them daily.
• Choose a trigger for your habit – something already in your routine that will immediately precede the habit and spark off a spending spree. For example window shopping in your lunch hour.
• Do the first, baby step for one week (looking at your debts), right after the trigger. And as the debt is paid off, no matter how small the installments, post the progress publicly.
• Each week, move on to a slightly harder step. You’ll want to progress faster, but don’t. You’re building a new habit. Repeat this until you’ve done eight weeks.