New year, old habits: achieving and maintaining change

The urge for self-optimization

The year is still young. Since New Year's Day, the media has been bombarding us with ideas for self-optimization: do more sport, eat healthily, cut out alcohol, meditate and much more. This seems to work, as many feel caught out after the festive feasting and set themselves big goals, sometimes too big. Every year, fitness centers see a rush of new subscriptions. The fitness rooms are full, people are sweating, training and coaching. Dry January is also very much in vogue, so gone is alcohol and, in pursuit of a healthy diet, so too is convenience food. Many set off on this adventure, full of enthusiasm and optimism, sticking rigidly to new self-imposed guidelines and deadlines. That is, until real life takes over again: the gym visits become less regular and, just one a drink with friends can't hurt, after all, and nor can that fondue in winter, which is just too tempting.

It doesn't work

And then suddenly, before you know it, the good intentions are just intentions, ambitions are no longer actioned. What then creeps up on us is not a pleasant feeling: we are plagued by a guilty conscience and feel like failures and weaklings. We console ourselves with a little treat and say to ourselves: “Oh, life wasn't that bad before the New Year.” And the old habits – the excuses to not go the gym, the glass (or two) wine, are back in play. The question hangs: why do good intentions not work?

Look inwards

To answer that question, we have to go back one step and ask why do we fall into the resolutions trap in the first place? Why do we believe that we want/should/must improve? Something lurks inside us, something that is not entirely satisfied with what we are doing. Something is bothering us, preventing us from moving forward, from feeling healthier and fitter, from feeling more comfortable in our own skin. That is the crux of the matter. This is where we should start, look inside ourselves and find out what exactly it is. Why don't we manage to exercise regularly? Is it because sport is perhaps not my thing, or is something or someone preventing me from doing it? We should ask ourselves these questions and invest time in finding out why we not do things we think we should do. It's about becoming aware of which habits have crept into our lives that we actually want to break away from because deep down, we know they are not good for us. Or that they don't belong to us. Habits that we may have picked up in our childhood or from our environment.

Be aware of your own behavior

As a first step, it is helpful to observe your own behavior. Simply observe. Don't judge whether a behavior or habit is good for us or not. Observe and recognize: “Aha, that's what I do automatically in this situation.” As a second step, live and identify the feeling that the behavior provokes in you. Do I get nervous or anxious, or does it somehow not feel good? Then we are already one step further. That's where we need to start and find out why it doesn't feel good, and think about how we could behave differently in this same situation to make the feeling a positive experience.

Breaking with habits

When this or a similar situation arises again, we should pause and try to apply the new way of reacting or acting. In other words, it's about breaking habits. To slowly and consciously let go of habits that have crept into our body and mind. Habits - old and new - are like programs that we carry within us and that run automatically. The “reprogramming” may take a little time and practice at first, and a coach can be very supportive and ask the right questions. Sometimes there could be relapses because the old program is so deeply engrained as the default response. But it is precisely these old programs that can be “rewritten” until, after a while, it slowly becomes normal to run the new program.

Breaking the habit: that's the key. And it doesn't matter whether that start at the beginning of a new year or later. The main thing is to get started!