Resolutions

Struggling to Keep a Resolution? Try This.

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? If so, you’re in good company. In surveys, nearly half of people say they usually do. The most common resolutions are to lose weight, exercise more, quit smoking, reduce debt, and manage money better.

Do you keep your resolutions? Unfortunately, if you’re like 92 percent of resolution makers, you may struggle to follow through.

Here’s why: Intention is important, but there’s a far more powerful step to making a change in your life. Design a system that supports your desired habit.

Keep reading to learn why designing a system is a crucial (but sometimes forgotten) part of changing a habit. Then discover how to create effective systems to:

Get out of debt
Save money
Eat healthier
Get fit

How to Change a Habit

Why does it usually feel so difficult to change a habit? You can blame your highly efficient brain. A habit has three parts: a trigger, a response, and a reward.

When you repeat the same trigger, response, and reward for about 60 days, your brain identifies it as a habit and moves it to the basal ganglia, deep brain structures responsible for unconscious motor behaviors.

After this, when you notice the trigger, your pre-frontal cortex prompts the basal ganglia to automatically initiate the response. That’s why it feels like you’re not in control of your habits — and why it can feel difficult to change them.

Here’s the good news: You can change a habit, and it doesn’t need to be that hard. But it pays to understand systems thinking, which is how structure helps create the conditions we face.

Because we like to think we’re in control of our habits, we often underestimate how much the design of the environment impacts our lives.

Systems Matter

For instance, you may think your health is in your own hands and determined by whether you decide to hit the salad bar or lace up your running shoes. But the design of your environment has a big impact on your actions.

Did you know the more intersections there are in your city, the less likely you are to suffer from obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, or heart disease? That’s because you’re more likely to walk or bike when your city’s infrastructure is designed for it.

The same thing is true of the infrastructure of your house. In cultures where people don’t have furniture and need to squat on the floor to sit and prepare food, people tend to stay agile into old age.

Here’s the bottom line: If you want to change something about your life, think about which structures are in place to support your old habit.

Unfortunately, the larger culture may be working against your healthy intentions. According to a recent study, only 3 percent of Americans have a healthy lifestyle, and the obesity rate is now up to 35 percent. We could clearly use some new society-wide systems.

But chances are, you can design a personal system to support your new habit. And when you do, you’ll be far more likely to follow through on your resolution. Here are some specific examples.

Design Your Life for Financial Security

Do you want to pay off debt, save money, or invest more? Here’s a surefire system to get on track. Set up your bill payments, savings deposits, and investment deposits to happen automatically. I resisted doing this for years, but once I did, my family’s finances improved dramatically.

You’ll need to set aside time to make a budget and then connect your accounts to your checking account or a credit card. If you have an employer, you may be able to also automatically divert some of your paycheck into savings and an investment account every time you get paid.

Don’t take an out-of-sight out-of-mind approach though. Sign up for alerts to find out what’s being withdrawn from your account. Then keep an eye on your account to make sure the appropriate amounts come in and out.

A company could accidentally overcharge you, although I haven’t had a problem in five plus years of automatically paying our bills.

Once a year, go through your bills to determine if you still need the service or can get a better deal with a different plan or company.

Design a Better Diet

If your resolution is to eat healthier, here are three systems to help you eat better:

Grow a vegetable garden
Join a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program
Plan your meals.

When you garden or join a CSA (a weekly box of produce bought directly from a local farm), you increase your consumption of fruits and veggies and build your meals around the freshest, most nutritious produce available. (Check out this article to learn more reasons Local, Seasonal Foods are Superfoods.)

People who cook their meals at home also eat healthier without even trying. Planning meals makes cooking easier because it prevents the horrible feeling of staring into an empty fridge with no idea what to make when you’re hungry. If you’ve never planned your meals, it’s simple. For inspiration and ideas, check out this article I wrote on the subject for Fix.com.

Design Your Life for Fitness

Want to get in shape this year (without buying an expensive gym membership)? Here are four ways to design your life for more physical activity:

Walk, bike, or ride public transit to work

Active commuting is a powerful way to improve your health. Regular walking is the best thing you can do to maintain a healthy weight, according to a British study. Cycling to work can decrease your risk of getting cancer by 45 percent and heart disease by 46 percent, according to another study. And in a different study, public transit riders were the healthiest of all commuters, probably because they ended up walking most. Bonus: This change is also good for the environment, and it may help you save money.

Exchange a car trip per day for a walking or bike trip

Not everyone loves going for a walk. Just ask my kids. But walking to do an errand feels more authentic than going for an aimless walk. Make it a regular errand, and you’ll build regular exercise into your life. Aim for a 20 to 30 minute walk a day to meet the government’s health recommendations.

Remodel your house with health in mind

Most people’s houses are designed for sitting, but there’s no reason you can’t redesign your home for better health. Some people are outfitting their houses with monkey bars, mini trampolines, pull up bars, or climbing walls, and even transitioning to furniture-free living.

Redesigning your kitchen in subtle ways can make a big difference as well. Did you know you’re likely to eat about 13 percent less food if you use a small plate? You’ll also eat less food if the color of your food contrasts with the color of the plate.

Join a fitness streaming membership

Whether you love pilates, yoga, qigong, tai chi, barre 3, or any other type of workout, chances are you can stream unlimited videos in your living room affordably. That means you’ll know exactly where to go when it’s time to work out, which can help cut the paralysis from having too many choices. I love Essentrics and YoQi, which are each $15 a month. And there are many, many more options.

Conclusion

Old habits can be hard to break. Set yourself up for success by designing a system to make your resolution a reality.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these similar posts:

Save

Just One Small Change

By Abby Quillen

When I was writing my New Year’s Resolutions series, I went on the lookout for simple and inexpensive ways we might live better in 2010. And it struck me how much we might be able to improve our lives by making just one small change.

For instance what if someone committed to a daily walk? That alone could bring better health, relaxation, improved sleep, connection with neighbors, and more quality time with family. And if the walk replaced a car trip, it could even save some money. Every small change I thought of had a similar snowball effect.

Recently I heard an interview with William Wittman, a life coach in Seattle. He talked about an easy daily exercise that he recommends to his clients and insists he’s seen it bring huge changes to people’s lives. He calls it “Owl Ears and Owl Eyes”. The idea is to go outside first thing in the morning, stand still, and look up, down, and side to side without moving your head while listening closely to the sounds around you, first the loud ones, then the quieter ones.

Wittman says that by connecting with nature like this first thing in the morning, we connect with what’s meaningful in the world. And by focusing on looking and listening, we can’t help but quiet our mental chatter and relax. He says he’s seen this one small change motivate people to get healthy, find fulfilling work, reach out to friends, and on and on.

I think Wittman might be on to something. Awhile ago my neighbor put down black plastic over the garden in his backyard, which attracted ducks – sometimes sixty of them at a time. And now each night the ducks circle over our neighborhood in groups of four or five, flying lower and lower until they’re just overhead. (I wrote about it before here; my neighbor has since built a pond for the ducks.)

I’ve been shocked at how much this random, natural (and free) event has improved my family’s quality of life. Most nights we go outside to watch the ducks, and we chat with our neighbors, connect with nature, and enjoy each other’s company. Just one small change really has added up to so much more.

(Originally posted on March 16, 2010)

What do you think? Has one small change ever made a big difference in your life?

Just One Small Change

By Abby Quillen

(This post is for Steady Mom’s Thirty Minute Blog Challenge.)

What do you think? Has one small change ever made a big difference in your life?

Resolving to do nothing

By Abby Quillen

Fall-Flowers — Photo credit: Tammy Strobel

I wrote a lot about resolutions in January. What I didn’t mention is that I don’t usually make New Year’s Resolutions.

This year I decided to though.

I’ve read and heard a lot about the benefits of meditation over the years, most recently in this fascinating interview with Jill Bolte Taylor, author of Stroke of Insight. Taylor is a neuroscientist. Several years ago, she had a nearly life-threatening stroke that wiped out the left side of her brain. She lost her ability to talk, read, and write. But without the left side of her brain functioning (that’s the part that thinks logically, names things, and worries), she felt an extreme sense of euphoria and well-being. Taylor believes meditation can teach the rest of us to quiet the left side of our brains and experience a similar sense of well-being .

I’ve also read about various studies showing that meditation can boost the immune system and make people happier.

I’ve practiced meditation occasionally over the years, but this year I decided to commit to 15 minutes every day. Like most people, I’m busy. I have a toddler, so solitary quiet time is a rarity. And when I have it, I’m usually feverishly working. So this idea of sitting silently for 15 minutes a day felt like something of a radical act.

What is meditation?

People use many different techniques to meditate. The general idea is to try to focus your attention on one thing. Some people say a mantra or “om”, some sit in front of a mirror, some dance or walk.

I simply sit in silence, close my eyes, and try to focus on my breath. When I inevitably find my mind drifting, I just try to bring my awareness back to my breath. I use the word “try”, because meditating is not as easy as it might sound.

Much to my surprise, in just one month, I’ve noticed some fairly huge changes in the way I think and feel.

• More focus.

I have not always been the most focused person. I partly blame the Internet, because I got used to jumping back and forth between ten tabs at once, skimming things, and clicking from link to link. Then I transferred that mindset to my daily life.

For example, I was reading a lot of books at a time. I’d have four or five stacked up on my nightstand. I’d read half of one, then pick up another, then go back to the first one, or pick up a new one. And even though I’ve always loved fiction, I got distracted from novels most easily, often putting them down after a few chapters.

I am thinking so much more clearly now. I’ve mostly eradicated multitasking from my life. I make a checklist and do one thing at a time. And I’ve been reading one book at a time start-to-finish and have finished a number of novels. (I imagine making checklists also plays a role in my new-found focus, but more on that in another post.)

• Just being, not thinking

It’s easier for me to just be, for its own sake, without over-thinking it. For instance, I can stand in my backyard and feel the wind, listen to the birds, hear the trees rustle, and smell my neighbors’ woodsmoke without even naming those sensations to myself. Meditating seems to be teaching me to feel without thinking, just as Taylor suggested.

• Emotional awareness.

When you meditate, you observe emotions coming and going. You’re supposed to just be aware of them, notice what they do to your body, and name them as they pass. “Fear, anger, impatience, etc.” After practicing this during meditation, I’m more aware of how I’m feeling when I’m not meditating. (This can be quite helpful when living with an irrational (but adorable) toddler.)

• Making peace with slow

I love listening to the radio and podcasts, but I also spend a lot of my days in silence. I find that I’m even more at ease with the silence now. Also when those inevitable slow times arise during parenting, i.e. waiting for a toddler to eat, get dressed, fall asleep, walk in the same general direction as you, etc., I’m seeing them more as opportunities to practice being present and aware.

Honestly this radical experiment I undertook last month feels a lot less radical now. I don’t feel good unless I sit and do nothing for 15 minutes. It’s starting to feel essential.

When I used to run four or five days a week, I felt an incredible freedom knowing that I could just run anywhere if I needed to. I feel a similar sense of freedom knowing that I can just be.

Do you meditate? If so, have you noticed changes in the way you think and feel since you started?

Save

Resolve to Save Money

By Abby Quillen

I’ve heard that most of us forget our resolutions sometime before Martin Luther King Day. But maybe we’re just making it too difficult? Living better often comes down to slowing down and keeping things simple. In that spirit, I’ll tackle a few common resolutions.

My goal is to share the easiest, least expensive, most practical knowledge I’ve gleaned on how we can live better. Share your favorite tips in the comments section, too.

If you’re serious about making positive changes, some experts advise that you focus on one specific, defined, quantifiable goal at a time. So pick one from the list and go for it!

Ten Ways to Save Money

Quite a few of us became reluctant experts on the art of pinching pennies. My husband and I became adept at tightening an already tight budget. Here are the best ideas I’ve come across so far:

1. Write down everything you spend.

Do you already have a budget? If not, write down everything you buy for a week. It will make you aware of your spending habits. (You may be surprised how much incidental purchases add up.) Then use what you learn about your expenses to make a monthly budget.

2. Carry cash

Try ditching the debit and credit cards and using cash for purchases. You may find that you’re more conscious of how much you’re spending. Parting with cash can feel more real than swiping a card. And a study suggests carrying large denomination bills makes people much less eager to spend money.

3. Pay your Savings Account first

Determine how much money you can afford to save, and pay your savings account before you pay any other bills. If your employer offers direct deposit, automatically divert a portion of your paycheck into your savings account.

4. Give yourself free money

Make sure each member of the household has a designated amount of money to spend on whatever they wish. It will help everyone stick to a tight budget without feeling deprived.

5. Park your car for a week.

My husband and I recently parked our car for an entire month. We don’t drive much, so we thought it would be easy. It wasn’t. We learned how to be so much more economical with our trips and purchases. When you’re relying on public or human-powered transit, things like going to a box store on the outskirts of town, running out for last-minute take-out, or buying anything big and heavy become less attractive options.

We honestly missed the car a little more than we hoped we would. But we enjoyed riding our bikes everywhere, especially our son. He retrieves his bicycle helmet first thing in the morning and says, “Vroom, vroom.” His zeal for two wheels keeps us riding our bikes nearlly everywhere – even when it’s raining.

6. Make your own

Stock up on baking soda, vinegar, and hydrogen peroxide, and whip up your own personal care products and household cleaners. These three ingredients are non-toxic, inexpensive, versatile, and amazingly effective.

Start with:

7. Eat at home

If you eat out just once a week and spend $30, that adds up to $120 a month and $1,560 a year. It’s not hard to see how dining at home can save you lots of cash.

8. Plan your meals

A meal-planning system can cut your grocery bill by hundreds of dollars a month. It can also help you eat healthier, incorporate more whole foods into your diet, enjoy cooking again, stop those last-minute “let’s just get a pizza” nights, and even help you get along better with your spouse. Want to learn more? I wrote about the art of meal-planning here.

9. Cook from scratch

You can save a lot of cash by giving up processed and packaged food and preparing your meals from scratch. I’ve cut our food budget by at least $300 a month this way. But more importantly, I love it. It’s more labor-intensive, more time-consuming, and more general effort. But cooking from raw ingredients is creative work. Our house smells of fresh-baked bread; or of garlic, oregano, or basil; or of soup slowly simmered, and it just feels a lot more like home. Want to learn more? I wrote about cooking from scratch here.

10. Eat local foods seasonally

In Eating Close to Home, Elin Cristina England writes, “We seem to have collectively succumbed to the myth that a green lettuce salad with a tomato should be part of every dinner from January to March.” She argues that we should eat seasonally, with our winter meals consisting of mainstays like carrots, parsnips, turnips and rutabagas. If we eat this way, she writes:

Over the course of a year, we end up eating a varied diet, from a wide range of the plant kingdom, which nourishes us with a full complement of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients.

Imagine how much money you might save on food by letting go of the idea of eating like it’s the peak of summer year-round.

Do you have any tips on saving money to share?

Save

Making Resolutions

By Abby Quillen

It’s almost a new year, which means many of us are engaging in a favorite American occupation – self help.

As the promise of a fresh year approaches, we shop for new calendars and resolve to be better – to quit smoking, drink less, get organized, save money, start an exercise routine, eat more vegetables, etc. Not surprisingly, publishers print a bonanza of diet and self-help books this time of year to aid us in all this resolution-making.

I fear that our zest for looking for individual solutions to our problems can distract us from working for collective solutions, like paid sick leave and creating more livable cities.

But, like most Americans, I also love the idea that a person can apply some good old-fashioned will power and become something better. And I’ve certainly made lots of positive changes in my own life by making relatively small changes.

I’ve fortunately never been drawn to get-rich-quick or lose-weight-fast schemes. But I have been known to digest a few tomes of the simple-living variety of self-help.

I find such freedom in the notion that by choosing to have less stuff, we can have more time for more fulfilling pursuits, like family, friendships, and creativity. (And, at the same time, we can add less to the landfills and stop contributing as much to the traffic congestion and brown clouds of pollution that plague many of our cities.)

So in honor of the New Year, I’ve decided to scout out my favorite easy, simple, inexpensive ways that we can live a little bit better in 2010 … Stay tuned.

Resolutions

Before Footer

Ready to ramp up your content and see results? Drop me an email, and we'll find a time to chat.

Footer