Resolve to Change?: One reader wonders if new year’s resolutions are harmful

Dear C & Dr. B;

Every year, I make resolutions for the new year, usually to lose weight and stop drinking. Every year I break the resolutions after a few weeks. Last year, I decided not to make any resolutions, and I lost 5 pounds. My alcohol consumption remained about the same, but still…

Now as the new year starts, I want to make resolutions, because I want to make decisions in my own life that I can control, and follow through with them. I think it’s a reaction to COVID and feeling stressed and restricted for so long. I want to do something. But now I am afraid that if I make resolutions, I’ll just doom myself to fail – and if I just act without thinking, I will go in the right direction.

Can resolutions be bad for you?

Saint Sativa

Dr. B says: Any ultimatum doesn’t work. Change doesn’t happen in a day. You either make a lifestyle change that you do every day, or you don’t. To quote my friend, Valerie Frank: “Did you know that if you eat perfectly and lose 13.5 lbs in a month you have to keep doing it… like forever??!!!!!!” There is a great podcast about the science behind changing or maintaining behavior on NPR at The Hidden Brain.

Here is another relevant quote: “resolutions are made to be broken.” So, either do it or not, but if you  “do it,” keep doing it… like forever. 

C says: I beg to differ.

Resolutions are neither all bad or nor all good. A resolution does not have to be an ultimatum, and it need not always be repeated FOREVER exactly the same. I’ve worked at diet centers, so I know – there is a science to effective weight loss and it doesn’t involve eternal starvation. On safe weight loss programs, after reaching goal weight the maintenance diet isn’t nearly as restrictive as the weight loss diet was. I think Dr. B’s friend may have been referring to those fad diets that cause rapid weight loss, which is mostly water. But in a broader sense, I think that the mistake most people make with resolutions is that their goal is to STOP doing something. They don’t consider that human nature deplores a vacuum, and if a new habit isn’t formed to fill that vacuum, failure is imminent. That’s where permanent lifestyle changes come in.

But the biggest problem most people face when they make resolutions is the discomfort that always comes with change. It has nothing to do with ultimatums or resolutions, it is simply a consistent feature of change: we have a result in mind when we make those new year’s promises, but in between now and that result, there’s going to be a whole lotta uncomfortable. There are very few changes that feel right when they first happen – quite the opposite. Humans are creatures of habit, and every habit we break screams to be reinstated, while every new unfamiliar habit we are trying to stick to feels completely wrong. Anyone who is not prepared to deal with that is doomed to failure.

Resolutions do have a purpose. In order for ANY change to happen the first step is a decision, ie, resolution, to change. Of course, that decision must be ACTED on. But the resolution comes first. If you just act without thinking, you are not likely to wander randomly into new, better ways of living. You are far more likely to wander where your instincts take you – right back to those comfortable old habits.

Don’t be afraid to make resolutions. Just be aware of what comes next, and you will be on your way to keeping one.

You can visit Dr. B’s blog at drbrilliantcliche.wordpress.com