We’re halfway through January and I keep hearing people say they’ve already failed at their new year’s resolutions.

Impossible! If you’ve ‘already failed’, then you’re simply not doing your goal setting, habit change or new year’s resolutions right. But you can fix that.

Here’s how.

3 Lessons for Achieving Goals, Changing Habits and Keeping New Year’s Resolutions

1. It Takes 21 66 Days to Change a Habit

In a study of people attempting to change diet and exercise habits, it took between 18 and 245 days for the new behavior to feel automatic. The duration varied by person and habit, but the average was 66 days.

So 66 days is a good indicator when planning your own goal, habit change or new year’s resolution.

That means you need to allow at least a couple of months to get used to exercising, living without cigarettes, getting organized, stopping an anger habit, or whatever else is on your 2010 goals list.

Not 3 days, after which many people give up, feeling virtuous for having ‘tried’.

Not even 21 days, as the conventional wisdom suggests.

But 66 days.

Lesson: If you’ve been working on your goal, habit change or new year’s resolution for less than 66 days, you’re not done yet.

2. You Need to Focus on Willpower What’s Achievable

Studies by the psychologist Baumeister suggest that willpower may be a limited resource – meaning it can be overtaxed and depleted.

It seems that trying to exert perfect control over behavior may sabotage your efforts in the long run. You ‘exhaust’ your self control, which can lead you to splurge/binge. (Sound familiar, dieters?)

Hmmm… So failed willpower may result less from your fundamentally flawed and detestable character, and more from pushing too hard.

A better strategy, then, might be to lower your expectations and go for persistence instead.

• Rather than: I’ll exercise every day for 60 minutes
  opt for: I’ll walk for 20 minutes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
• Rather than: I’ll give up chocolate completely
  opt for: I’ll have half the amount I normally have and savor it more.
• Rather than: I’ll spend 2 hours every night getting organized
  opt for: I’ll spend 30 minutes a week or 5 minutes a day on organizing tasks.

Once you achieve that, you can up the ante.

And the rest of the time, you can stop obsessing.

Lesson: If you oscillate between monastic willpower and rampant revelry, aim for something more achievable, and stick with it.

3. If You Miss a Day, It’s All Over It Makes No Difference

Another finding from the health habits study was that a day’s lapse was immaterial to successfully changing a habit.

Forget the all-or-nothing, black-and-white, on-or-off-the-wagon thinking that makes us give up at the first setback. Turns out we can be human, fail occasionally, and still manage to achieve our goals.

Lesson: If you drop the ball today, pick it up tomorrow.

Over to You…

What are your goals, habit changes or resolutions for 2010? How can you adjust your plans based on these 3 lessons from psych research?

[Image:http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_mistress/ / CC BY-SA 2.0]

Related posts:

1. How To Change Habits: My 3-Cubed Formula
2. Goal Setting 101: How To Use SMART Goals to Change a Habit
3. New Year’s Resolutions: Posts & Resources