In previous years, I have emailed you all suggesting that, despite the start of the new year, the probability is that you will remain more or less the same as you have previously. The best predictor of future behaviour is... you guessed it, past behaviour.
It doesn't have to be this way.
Changing past behaviour is difficult, as it involves change at the level of the psychological, social, and practical. Let's take the example of diet to illustrate this point. Yes, you know that you need to eat less if you want to lose weight, but what is
really required for change?
Psychological: You may previously have used food as a psychological crutch. You may have beliefs around food that make dieting difficult. It's possible that these are not merely secondary a knowledge deficit, but fundamental psychological issues to be addressed more broadly (e.g. self-worth, body
image, etc.).
Social: Lots of social occasions revolve around food. It can be difficult to maintain one's social life while dieting, which may require changes in how you approach the social part of your life. This can also be said for alcohol, which is a source of excess calories itself, but also derails dieting efforts
for many other reasons. Social change, or even just coming to terms with a new social identity (e.g. how other people view you, what they expect from you, etc.), can be a strong barrier.
Practical: Yes, you need to eat less. This may involve tracking your food, changing where or how you shop, and other elements of your
food environment. Many people try to just change how much they eat, while still living amongst an abundance of 'junk foods' at home, and sometimes without even changing the quality of the food they eat. This, unfortunately, can lead to failure.
For these reasons and more, you need to try and be more specific with your New Years Resolutions and behaviour change
targets for 2024. If you want to really change.
'Lose weight' is not enough.
'Read more' is not enough.
'Exercise' is not enough.
You have to be honest with yourself about why you have not done those things up to now. You're not dumb. You know that living in a more healthful manner, studying more, and living well, would be good for you. You need to get clear on the why behind past failures, which can be challenging.
Many people think they can
just ride the motivational wave of the new year and willpower their way to success. With 10 years of coaching under my belt, I can tell you that this works in a tiny minority of cases. It's probably not you. What you need to do is have an honest sit-down with yourself to analyse your past behaviour, deconstruct your decisions, and get clear on the barriers in your life.
If you can do this, 2024 will be very fruitful.
To make this actionable, I suggest that you do the following...
1.) Write down 3 behaviours that would take you to your goal.
e.g. for weight loss, it might be eating fewer takeaways, walking everyday, and ensuring you have healthy foods at home.
2.) Write down 3 barriers for each of those 3 behaviours.
e.g. for eating
takeaways, it might be time restrictions, limited cooking skills, and weekly shopping consistency.
3.) Write down 1 clear solution for each of those 3 barriers.
e.g. if you are too time poor to cook your meals, you might need to find an extra
30-minutes per day. Find the low hanging fruit here, which for many people, is setting a screen-time limit and spending less time doom-scrolling.
The specifics of this will look different for everyone, but this provides you with a framework to begin changing your behaviour regardless of your specific goal. It's also not going to be enough to do this once on January
1st and move on. That's just not how behaviour change works. You need to check-in with yourself regularly, review your behaviour, and reset your solutions.
The most important thing I'd like you to know...
Change is possible. For
everyone.
No matter how far you have drifted from your ideal Path, change is always possible. You can redeem and rebuild yourself. All of us, every single one of us, have things we need to change or improve, and all of us can make that happen. The biggest lie we tell ourselves is that change is not possible, or that some things about us are just "who we
are". Don't accept that. You can be so much more.
Since 2016, Triage have been here to provide you with the knowledge and skills to improve your health & fitness. I hope that some of you have benefited from that. We will continue to do the same in 2024, and hopefully provide you with even more useful free content to help change your life.
