How to Survive Quitter’s Day
8 Effective tips to stay loyal to your intentions
How are you doing with your New Year’s resolutions? Are you still going strong, or have you given up already? Or somewhere in between?
You should know you are not alone if you struggle to stay loyal to your resolutions. Many people make New Year’s resolutions, but only a few succeed. According to a Forbes Health survey, 53% of people give up in the first three months. This phenomenon is so common that we have “Ditch New Year’s Resolutions Day” (January 17) and “Quitter’s Day” (the second Friday in January). “Blue Monday” doesn’t help either.
Here are some powerful practices that might help you stay loyal to yourself.
Think big
Changing your behavior can be challenging. For instance, starting a weekly gym routine can be a tough habit to establish. You don’t see immediate results, and your muscles still ache from last time. Why bother to continue?
Think back to why you want to do this in the first place. What do you want to achieve? Why is this important to you? How does it look, feel, hear, and sound when you succeed? As a reminder, you can visualize this in a mood board or a drawing. I created a mock-up of my book cover and put that on the wall behind my desk as an inspirational reminder for every evening I was working on my book.
Act small
Ambition is fantastic, but if you set your resolution goals too high or too far away, getting there will be an uphill battle, and you will most likely give up trying. Setting smaller intermediate goals within reach and leading the way to the next goal is more effortless. Taking smaller steps helps you become consistent and prevents frustration or burning up. That’s why Scrum teams work in sprints, focusing on subsequent Sprint Goals to reach the longer-term Product Goal.
Plan for success
If your resolution is important to you, then make sure you prioritize it. Reserve a recurring time slot in your calendar to allocate sufficient time, and you’ll get a reminder for free. Even if you spend only 5 minutes each time practicing your new behavior, you will be making progress.
Definition of Fun
Practicing your new behavior may feel like a pointless chore at times. If it were enjoyable, you would have done it already, right? So the question is: how can you make it more fun? Add some music? Join forces with a friend? Maybe tweak the environment? To make reading enjoyable, I created a cozy corner in our living room to sit and read more comfortably, and it helps!
Acknowledge progress
We often believe we are only successful when we reach the final goal. It is easy to focus on what is not going well and forget the good stuff happening along the way. This is where the practice of Success Logging comes in handy. This technique helps you acknowledge the valuable intermediate steps you take for granted.
Celebrate
And when you acknowledge yourself for these intermediate successes, why not have a little celebration? Make a list of fun activities that you can pick from and reward yourself. It will help you to keep going. Aim to fill this list with concrete and easy-to-execute actions so you can comfortably pick something on the fly. How about taking a break to enjoy a nice cup of coffee, watching funny animal videos, or playing your favorite music and singing/dancing along? You know best how to reward yourself. Go for it!
Inspect & adapt
To know how you are progressing on your resolution, evaluating how you are doing is essential so you can learn and improve. If all goes well, that’s awesome! Maybe you belong to those 6% of people who stick to their resolutions after 12 months.
But life often doesn’t go as planned, so we need to learn to deal with setbacks and unexpected situations. It starts with measuring your progress regularly so you know for a fact how you are progressing. Based on these insights, you can adjust your plans and increase your chances of succeeding in your resolutions.
Reframe
This last piece of advice might sound silly. But since we all know that New Year’s resolutions hardly ever last, we mentally set ourselves up for failure by following this tradition. So why not reframe it to a personal goal that you happened to start working on in January? Give it a try and see how that feels.
Keep going
I hope you find some of these practices helpful. Give it a try and support yourself in working on your goals (formerly known as resolutions). As a bonus, I promise to cheer you up if you share your goal below! And I invite all other readers to join me because we all benefit from encouragement along the way. Keep on rocking; you got this!
Take care and till next time!
Kind regards,
Herman / Scrumpy Dad
I help people find their purpose and stay loyal to their goals and values to create more happiness in their lives.
Get started immediately and get your copy of A Scrum Master’s Guide to Happiness to learn how to navigate the complexities of life. Check out the Scrumpy Dad website for more information.
