New Year RESOLUTIONS

Adding to Our Already Awesome Ideas!

We have combined three blogs in one! Read through our last few New Year Resolution blogs and learn how to make those changes stick. 

3 Sure Fire Acceptance Approaches To Resolutions:

Sometimes, acceptance can reduce the barriers that stop us. 

1. Determine What is Worth it – acceptance means “this is what is happening” as opposed to “I agree with this”. Once you start being honest with what is actually happening to you, you can then determine what change is worth fighting for. More often than not, we fight for change in areas that are unlikely to change. 
2. Find Limits that Challenge not Impede – the resolutions you made have to be challenging but cannot impede progress. For instance, if you want to start running but have never run before maybe start walking very fast first. 
3. Start Neutral – our accepting perspective allows us to land between positive and negative on the perspective spectrum. Starting neutral allows us to take an acceptance approach that can lead to positive in the future. “It’s okay I walked 1 mile fast. Maybe next time I will run a half mile or walk fast for 1.5 miles and that’s good to.”

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Top 6 Ways to Make Resolutions Stay!

By Bluestone Psychiatric Services The New Year often evokes thoughts on making change. “This year it will be different!” But how are you going to make that change? The past often is the best predictor of the future. Isaac Newton said it best; yet funny thing is, he wasn’t talking about humans but easily could have. “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” People often do too much or too little of something. Consider for example, spending, eating, socializing, exercising, working etc.  To make change our clients often combine therapy with psychiatric medication. Let’s reconsider Newton’s third law of thermodynamics: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction? Resolutions are no different. The natural inclination is to make the change in an intense way but history tells us the rebound effect is just as intense.

Here are 6 Tips to making the change you have always wanted to:

What can you do instead to make resolutions sustainable?

1. One Step at a Time – look to repeat previous success by finding small victories. This is a long race and the sprinters often get injured. Keep it simple, keep it easy yet don’t stop moving forward. The ability to be resilient and consistent will produce change.
2. Create Goals that are Behavior Driven – the final outcome will advance on its own but the focus needs to be on the daily action. There’s a difference between saying I am going to have three colors of food on my plate each day and “I want to lose 10 pounds”.
3. Fun, Fun, Fun – put fun in the path of the action you want to take. If you go for a run, do it in a beautiful place or with a wonderful person. If you are trying to eat less, add interesting things into your life that are not related to food. Your ability to like something directly relates to your consequence of doing it.
4. Plan with a Purpose – create a plan that matches your goal and is doable. Know the time it will take and carve the space out in your life to do it.
5. Team Up. See if you can team up with a friend or two. In this way you can compare notes about what works and what doesn’t. It can be more fun and motivating to do things together.
6. Reward yourself – rewards are just that, rewarding. If you give yourself something and it does not promote future change, it is not a reward. If you find joy in it, then it is rewarding. If it reminds you to keep making the change you want then it is rewarding.

Adding Psychiatric Medication to Your Plan

Are you already in therapy? Have you plateau in your progress? There are times when psychiatric medication can provide the access to your skills not readily available. Consider meeting with one of our psych med providers for an evaluation. Our caring and thoughtful counselors and psychiatric medication providers are available to join with you in your goal.   Additional contributions from: David A Morris, LCSW Tory Butterworth, Phd/LPC

S.M.A.R.T. Goals to Make a Change:

A goal should do more than simply state a desire. A well-constructed goal should also provide guidance and direction. Goals like ‘lose weight’, ‘eat better’, or ‘have less stress’ are far too vague to be much help in making change.

To be more successful in attaining your goals, S.M.A.R.T. offers a framework upon which you can build more detail into your goal. Spending some time creating effective goals will be a huge help later on.

S – Specific:

• A useful goal is clear and specific: “Lose 20 pounds” is clearer and more specific than “Lose weight”
• By putting more effort into clarity, you can go even further, saying, “lose 20 pounds by taking a brisk, 30 minute walks 4 times a week and by using salad plates for meals to decrease my portion sizes.”
• Goals stated this way give you a target as well as instructions on how to reach it.

M – Measurable:

• Measuring your progress provides accountability, which helps you stay on track, and helps you know if your approach is working or not. Taking the time to measure progress gives you the chance to celebrate accomplishments and make adjustments as needed.
• Some goals are easier to measure than others. Losing 20 pounds can easily be measured by a scale, for example. If you can’t think of a good way to measure your progress, you probably need to work more on your goal statement. Revisit your goal and keep working at it until you have created something that you can also measure in some way.
• You may have to also be creative in coming up with a tool to measure your goal. You can approach it from both sides.

A – Attainable:

• A goal is more likely to be attainable if it is meaningful to you. If losing 20 pounds is not meaningful to you on its own, it’s not likely you will put forth the effort to actually do it and then maintain it.
• However, if the goal of being a part your family’s active summer adventures is meaningful to you and your weight is a barrier to that goal, losing the weight may now take on meaning to you.
• The goal should be inspiring enough that it motivates you to success. If you are not determined to meet your goal, obstacles will be very difficult to overcome.

R – Realistic:

• Goals should be ambitious, but not impossible.
• Choose a goal that pushes you out of your comfort zone that you are confident you can reach.
• Break large goals into smaller even more specific goals so you can plan out and take the steps needed to reach the bigger goal.

T – Time Based :

• Setting a time by which you want to have accomplished goals should be guided by all the work you have done up to this point.
• Choosing a time is important as it helps you build in whatever preparation you need to be ready to start (e.g., nutrition counseling to build healthy meals, any help you need to prepare for your increased exercise), and then gives you a clear start date. It also gives you an end date so you can hold that vision in front of you of you having reached your goal.
• When setting a time, you can again be very specific so that you have clear, measurable, and realistic goals. You could say, “In 3 months I will have lost 20 pounds.” Or you could say, “I will lose an average of 2 pounds every week for 10 weeks.”

Write your goal down:

Now really think about your goal. Using the guidelines above, write it down and put it somewhere you can see it.

Share your goal for encouragement and accountability:

Once you have your goal written down, share it with someone important to you whom you know will be able to provide you with support and encouragement. People who share their goals out loud to others and have support are more likely to reach their goals than people who keep them to themselves. Sharing with a therapist is always an option too!