A mental health charity, called Mind, has released a statement claiming that our goals for the New Year could actually do us more harm than good. How could that possibly be the case? Setting goals are a good thing, right? According to Mind, it depends on what we make our new years resolutions about. There are a lot of different types of goals such as those that focus on physical things or goals that aim for personal development. Have you ever wondered why making your goals have made you feel worse than you felt before they made them? Perhaps you have been focusing on the wrong type of goals.

According to Mind chief executive Paul Farmer: “New Year’s resolutions can sometimes focus on our problems or insecurities such as being overweight, feeling unhappy in our jobs or feeling guilty about not devoting enough time to friends and family.

The charity then urged people not to feel they must start 2009 full of resolutions for selfimprovement or physical imperfections, as they will only make  us aware of our shortcomings and as a result we will set unrealistic goals to change our behaviour. And when those resolutions fail, that could trigger feelings of failure and inadequacy, and consequently leave us feeling worse than when we started.

What do you think? Are you going to give up on setting New Years resolutions?

Personally, i’m not convinced. The whole point to making goals at the start of the year is to make us aware of what has been missing in our lives. It’s a time when people think back over their lives, of what they have achieved and what they want to achieve in the future. This puts people into perspective, as they are able to pinpoint where they are in their lives and what has to be done to achieve what they want. Having this period every year is a much better motivator than just blindly floating through life, year after year, with no thought of goals.

I believe it is not the actual process that makes people feel worse than when they started; it is how the resolutions are implemented that goes wrong. I’m not going to go into too much detail as there are ample posts within the blogosphere about NY resolutions (See below), but basically people are naive and think that by just setting their goals at the start of the year, their goals will magically start to form. We need to start our resolutions with a plan and continually monitor our progress towards these goals and we need to constantly remind ourselves of our goals so that they are fresh in our mind. People also need to start with the right type of goals.

Instead of making ones that are easily broken Mind, gave some suggestions for achievable resolutions:

Being active: exercise - even a gentle stroll - releases endorphins.

Going green: Evidence has shown connecting with nature can improve moods.

Learn something new: it give you confidence in your abilities.

Give back to your community: it can be just as rewarding for you as those you choose to help.

I do agree, though, that these resolutions are more appropriate ones to be setting at the start of the year. These are more positive and specific actions that can be taken to achieve goals.  These are the two important steps to making achievable resolutions that will not make you feel worse than before you set them. Firstly, don’t focus on the negatives. For example, rather than setting a goal that you stop being an unhappy person, you need to set a goal to be a happy person. Secondly, your goals need to be specific so that you know exaclty what you need to do to achieve what you want.

There is a lot of information out there about appropriately setting New Years Resolutions, so I am going to share some of my favourites with you.

Relaxing Into My New Years Resolutions @ Flowing Motion
This is a personal point of view on setting NY Resolutions, written by Jo. It will give you a simple tip on how to keep your resolutions. Jo’s blog always provides a bit of perspective and she has not failed to do so in this post.

A New Year-Ish How-To Guide @ ichoosechange
A concise, yet informative post that gives a summary of the information available on how to succeed at resolutions. The author, Jennifer Ryan, has done her research and filtered through all the informaiton on the net to provide a one stop guide to goal setting in the new year.

The secret to keeping your New Year’s resolutions — is there a magic formula?
Provides some very depressing statistics on NY resolutions but gives some valuable advice on how to achieve them.

The Psychology of New Year’s Resolutions @ PsychCentral
Written by a professional Psychologist, so this is very informative and definitely is recommended reading.

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