Be honest. As we enter the second half of January, how many of your new year’s resolutions are still going strong?

Reported statistics vary, but according to a recent study by Columbia University, while nearly half of Americans make New Year’s resolutions, when January ends, only about 25% are still committed to them. I read another international statistic that said 80% of all resolutions are broken by the end of February. Wherever the true figure lies (often somewhere in the middle of all the stats!), it doesn’t speak to a high success rate. So, if you are amongst the majority of people who have trouble keeping to their best intentions as the smell of fireworks fades and the chimes of midnight become but a distant memory, the good news is: you are far from alone.

And you do have options about how you want to deal with your broken resolution! Three, to my mind…

1. Start again

The temptation when you’ve broken your resolution(s) and you’re feeling at best annoyed with yourself, at worst like an abject failure, is simply to give up. To consider the whole resolution over and double down on the break. You’ve caved during a dinner with friends and had a drink during your Dry January, so you say “screw it” and help the gang finish the bottle. You missed a session in your 30-day yoga challenge, breaking the nice little row of tick marks you’d been mentally (or perhaps literally) giving yourself, so the urge is to say “well, that’s torn it” and forget the whole thing. You had a wobbly moment resulting in a cadged cigarette that makes you think you might as well just call it a day and buy a packet. Or maybe you simply binged on Netflix for three days when the January blues hit and now you feel slightly sick, disappointed with yourself, and vaguely doomed since the year didn’t get off to a productive and wholesome start.

While giving up is a valid option (see below), it isn’t the only one you have. A resolution doesn’t have to start on 1st January or be kept perfectly every day to have meaning and be worthy of your time and effort. So you slipped. Big deal. You probably know the saying “To err is human, to forgive divine”; it comes from “An Essay on Criticism” by Alexander Pope in which the poet explores what it means to be a good literary critic. Think about that: what is a good critic? What would it mean to be a good critic when it comes to yourself? Yes, you have erred – you are, after all, human – but can your inner critic find a way to be a good inner critic and forgive you? Maybe it’s easier if you imagine that it’s your best friend, partner or child who has slipped and is now in need of a little understanding and a gentle pep talk? Extend to yourself the same kindness, compassion and encouragement you would offer to someone you love. Then, simply make the choice to accept the human frailty of your erring, and move on. Without giving up, without throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and – crucially – without feeling like you have to start from scratch, simply continue to respect your resolution.

When my daughter learned to write, I noticed quickly that she was gloriously unbothered by mistakes. She would spell a word wrongly, realise her error, cross it, out then write it correctly. She never felt the need to throw out her poem or story and start again on a fresh piece of paper so that it would be perfect, and since she hadn’t yet discovered Tipp-Ex, she didn’t even attempt to cover up the fact that she’d made mistake. She simply corrected and carried on. You too can do that. When I look at her old letters to Santa, I delight in every Pleese, I woold like and Fathre Cristmas as signs of her progress and testaments to her learning and perseverance. Maybe, when you look back over the year and remember your resolution slip-ups, you too will be able to see them as times when you wobbled but got back on course and, along the way, learnt how to be a good critic and forgive yourself.

2. Adjust your expectations

Before you plough on, get back on the horse (or wagon), restart the machine and recommit to your laudable goal, consider adjusting your expectations of yourself. Perhaps you keep breaking your resolution because it simply isn’t realistic or achievable. Is a daily run really compatible with your schedule? Maybe it needs to be adjusted to a more manageable three times a week to accommodate young children and their inevitable sleepless nights and illnesses. Or perhaps you need to rethink how it fits into your day. Is lunchtime not so convenient after all? Maybe making it an early morning activity would work better?

Give yourself permission to re-commit to the spirit of your resolution while adjusting the parameters of your agreement with yourself to take into account and overcome the obstacles you have been encountering. In other words, look at what’s been stopping you from keeping your resolution and, if you decide to stick with it, make a plan for how you’ll deal with those things this time round.

3. Give up

Or…
Or…
You could just give up. Yep, not a very coach-y thing to say, but there it is: simply giving up is a totally viable option. I’m not saying this in some kind of reverse psychology move. You are in charge. You set yourself this challenge, and you can choose to end it. If you do take this route, make sure it’s for the right reasons, though. Don’t stop because you doubt yourself. Don’t give up because you keep slipping and think you’ve lost momentum. Don’t let it go because you’re struggling and the high road feels too hard.

Before throwing in the towel, ask yourself why you set the resolution – what was keeping it supposed to do for you, what were your anticipated benefits? Ask yourself too who you were attempting to please or make proud by achieving it. If the answer is anything other than yourself, then perhaps the reason you are finding the resolution so hard to keep is because your heart isn’t in it; maybe you’re not really committed because it was never really your resolution in the first place? Is it possible that you were, in fact, shoulding on yourself?

If you self-examine and find that you were indeed dancing to someone else’s tune or resolving for the wrong reasons, simply stop. Clear your head, do a quick stock take, and then – if it’s right for you – make a different resolution. One that furthers your personal agenda and growth. While making resolutions is a new year tradition and “starting Monday morning” always feels logical, the truth is that the best time to make your life better is now, whatever the day, date or time.

Read more about making and keeping new year’s resolutions, intentions and goals
Making the new year mindful
Setting New Year’s intentions
Know your why
Making resolutions you will keep

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