So, another year comes around and many of us will be lining up another set of resolutions. How many of you are aiming to do something like this -
- Improve well-being: lose weight, exercise more, eat better, drink less alcohol, stop smoking, stop biting nails
- Improve finances: get out of debt, save money
- Improve career: get a better job
- Improve education: improve grades, get a better education, learn something new (such as a foreign language or music), study often
- Improve self: become more organized, reduce stress, be less grumpy, manage time better, be more independent, perhaps watch less television, play less sitting-down video games
- Take an adventurous trip somewhere exotic
- Volunteer to help others, do something worthwhile
Well, I wish you all the very best. Some of you will achieve your goals – that is surely the aim of lots of our therapeutic endeavour, to help people towards greater self-actualisation.
However, I do not want to be a sour puss, but most of us will simply NOT keep our resolutions. Typically around eighty percent will fail to do so even for a limited amount of time.
As I say this, I am aware that many will see this as some kind of heresy. To start out with a suggestion that you are likely to fail is almost unforgivable in our culture. We are schooled in the idea that everything is possible to those of us who apply the right amount of ‘positive thinking’.
Of course, there is some truth in this. I have practised as a CBT therapist, and so know a lot about the strengths and limitations of ‘positivity’. Cognitive Behaviour Therapy has a strong wind behind it at the moment in almost every sphere of human activity. In my field (psychiatry) it has more or less replaced all other forms of talking treatments. A lot of what we do in the practice of CBT is to give people the hope of a new start. We set up our very own new year’s day, and encourage people to engage with the stuff of life in different – perhaps even more positive – ways.
But the relentless gospel of positivity can be a blunt instrument – particularly when allied to all that shiny self help stuff. Barbara Ehrenreich, author of a new book entitled ‘Smile or die, how positive thinking fooled America and the world‘, and ‘Bright Sided, How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America said this -
“…there is no kind of problem or obstacle for which positive thinking or a positive attitude has not been proposed as a cure. Having trouble finding a mate? Nothing is more attractive to potential suitors than a positive attitude, or more repellent than a negative one. Need money? Wealth is one of the principal goals of positive thinking. There are hundreds of self-help books expounding on how positive thinking can ‘attract’ money – a method supposedly so reliable that you are encouraged to begin spending it now. Practical problems such as low wages and unemployment are mentioned only as potential ‘excuses’. The real obstacle lies in your mind.”
What is the harm in encouraging people to think beyond their limitations and reach out for something better – more hopeful, more vitalising and fulfilling? There is good here I think…
But I have met many people who have set themselves on a determined path of self advancement and fulfilment – often fuelled by charismatic and inspirational speaking from other high achievers who exhort you to step forward into a brighter more fulfilled future, just like they did. Some of them may even have achieved this – although this often seems to require quasi-religious self delusion. Many others feel guilty and worthless because they fall short of these plastic-fantastic ideals.
For many of us, the issue is one of balance. Not everyone will benefit from being squeezed into their narrow mindset, which to others can easily become an oppressive mental straight jacket.
Like most people who are of a sensitive, somewhat artistic, creative bent, I can be somewhat mercurial. More than this, it could perhaps be said that I tend towards the melancholic. It is who I am. At times, I struggle with the consequences of this, but after many years of counselling (on both sides of the ‘couch’,) I know myself well enough to understand where it comes from, and to understand something of the strengths and weaknesses that I am skewed towards. It is the engine for much that is good, including creativity and sensitivity to the needs of others.
Life is not something that we can control by force of the mind.
There is suffering in this world.
And pain.
And sickness.
And imperfection.
And failure.
And brokenness.
And weakness.
And depression.
And periods when nothing seems to make sense.
I would contend that these things define our humanity. They are not things to be suppressed and denied as invalid or minor irritants. They might be things to embrace, to acknowledge or to allow to shape a different kind of transformation. Quite simply, we humans tend to change most readily in the face of the negative, not the positive. Nothing forces re-evaluation more speedily than crisis. It is the journey through this, in all it’s messy uncertainty, that is the real human story.
But back to making resolutions. A study undertaken by the University of Hertfordshire asked seven hundred people about their resolutions, and compared the seventy-eight percent of people who failed to keep them with the rest.
Of the seventy-eight percent who failed, many had focused on the downside of not achieving the goals; they had suppressed their cravings, fantasised about being successful, and adopted a role model or relied on willpower alone.
“Many of these ideas are frequently recommended by self-help experts but our results suggest that they simply don’t work,” Wiseman said. “If you are trying to lose weight, it’s not enough to stick a picture of a model on your fridge or fantasise about being slimmer.”
Resolutions that are pushed onwards by a kind of unrealistic, guilt driven, magical exhortation are unlikely to work.
However, this is not to say that resolutions are not worth making at all -
On the other hand, people who kept their resolutions tended to have broken their goal into smaller steps and rewarded themselves when they achieved one of these. They also told their friends about their goals, focused on the benefits of success and kept a diary of their progress.
People who planned a series of smaller goals had an average success rate of thirty-five percent, while those who followed all five of the above strategies had a fifty percent chance of success, the study found.
“Many of the most successful techniques involve making a plan and helping yourself stick to it.”
So – happy new year to you.
And if you make some resolutions, I would wish for you that the guilt is lifted, and the reality of it all is increased. I would also hope that you are able to spend some time breaking down your resolution into some realistic achievable goals.
Finally, when you fail (as you probably will) I would hope that you see this as a setback, not a terminal. Because life happens in the sunshine and also in the rain.
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