The Art of Mastery: Making Resolutions Stick

The start of the New Year is a great time to implement changes you want to make in your life. The New Year resembles a fresh start, a clean slate, a good starting point to reset. We vow to make these changes, you tell people what you’re going do to, you are excited. The first couple weeks go great but then ‘life’ happens, and this perfect new routine gets challenged and it ends up being the first thing to go to fit ‘life’ in. You have all the right intentions; you made a great plan, but you still backslide. You’re frustrated because this happens every year no matter what you do. You ask yourself if making a change is worth all the hassle and does change ever stick.

YES and YES is my answer to these questions, but there’s fine print to my answers:

The ’backslide’ is inevitable whenever ANYONE makes a change. There is more to making a change than just physically doing the actions. Our body and mind are built to remain in homeostasis, there is a built-in mechanism that keeps us ‘within normal limits’ and it will force us back into these limits if we exceed this boundary. For the most part, this is a good thing. This built-in mechanism controls our bodily functions and keeps us alive. It regulates our breathing to keep enough oxygen in our body, it pumps our heart at a specific pace so nutrients are circulated properly, it will release insulin if our blood sugar gets too high. This mechanism keeps us in equilibrium.

We have to keep this in mind when are making changes to the way we live. Initially, our body will fight back. It will want to remain in what it knows as homeostasis. The best example, and most popular change people make is adding a workout routine, let’s say jogging. You’re excited to start, you bought new workout clothes, got the fancy shoes. You get 100 meters into your first jog and you’re sucking wind, dizzy, and you are walking already. Most of us will immediately say “my body is just not made to run”, and we stop; however, these physical reactions are just the body trying to remain in equilibrium. This built-in mechanism is basically screaming, “WARNING! CHANGES OUTSIDE THE NORAML ARE OCCURING, STOP IMMEDIATELY”. Anytime anyone makes a big change our bodies will react like this.

So how do you keep from backsliding?

First, you must accept that you will backslide and when you do be kind to yourself. Whether the backslide is for a day, a week, a month, reset. Go back to your plan and start again. Kinda sounds like the mastery curve I mentioned in my October blog 😉(read that one here: The Art of Living in Mastery: What is Mastery and the Mastery Curve — ShaktiShiva Massage & Yoga (katieschlieppwellness.com)).

Second, you gotta put the work in. Change doesn’t just happen because you make the plan. You must be intentional with your actions, work at it every day, and find ways to make it fun. Staying disciplined is the hard part because, like I just explained, the body will fight this change. STAY STRONG! (Among other reasons, this is why I take a long weekend to myself every 3-4 months and reflect. It allows me to see what is working, what I need to get back to, and what is not working. It’s a great tool to help with discipline).

Lastly, start small. The worst thing you can do is implement a major change day one. Instead, make a plan using the idea of starting with the end in mind. Sticking with our jogging example, lets say you vow to run a half marathon. If you go out day one with the goal of running 13 miles, it is not going to go very well. You start with the end in mind, choose a race you want to run a few months out then build a running program back from that. That way you start with shorter distances and work your way up to 13 miles. This will help minimize the push-back from that built-in homeostasis mechanism. I am not saying this will make the change easy, it may still be tough in the beginning, you will probably still backslide, but starting with the end in mind will decrease the amount of backslide and increase your success rate.

Alright, now that you are in the know about mastering change, what changes or resolutions are you going to make for the New Year? I’d love to hear from you, and if you would like assistance in making a plan for this change I am here to help.

GOOD LUCK AND ENJOY THE PROCESS!