Written by: Shannan Blum, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
As a therapist, I hear a variety of lamentations around resolutions and goal-setting this time every year. Responses range from hopeful, “This year will be different!” to uncertainty, “Can I keep it up all year?” to downright resigned or contemptuous, “I never keep them anyway, goals are stupid. Why bother?” If you’re like most people, you’ll be deliberating over your 2023 New Year’s Resolutions or yearly goals like tens of thousands of other Americans.
When clients come to a session wanting guidance on ‘habits for success,’ in the form of goal setting and making resolutions, they are often surprised when I respond with: “Don’t. Avoid setting resolutions or all/nothing goals for the year. Instead, develop a process of cultivating ‘healing habits.’ You’ll support yourself through challenges and make more progress over time.”
Why Resolutions Fail
The short answer to this one is ‘emotions,’ or more specifically the avoidance of emotions. We want to avoid feelings deemed as unpleasant when making changes, such as:
fear,
feelings associated with “failure,”
distress, uncertainty, and anxiety
boredom, disappointment, and depression
rejection and judgment
Dr. Timothy Pychyl, a retired Professor of Psychology at Carleton University, has studied links between task completion and emotion regulation. In one of his many publications, he states, “Procrastination is an emotion-regulation problem. It’s not a time management problem. It’s about really dealing with our feelings.” His research connects the emotion dysregulation of procrastination with depression and anxiety symptoms, poor mental well-being, and poor task completion.
Successful completion of almost any project or goal will require experiencing unpleasant emotions. In her article, “7 Easy Steps To Focus And Stop Procrastinating,” Brainz Executive Contributor Serena Martino acknowledged the emotional aspect, “you do not want to do something because is difficult, boring, or not worth your time.” Avoidance leads to procrastination behaviors, then “resolve” falters. George Doran, the developer of SMART Goals, also summarized the process of goal and objective setting “is a major source of anxiety that many individuals would like to live without.”
Consider the possibility that the underlying snag here is similar to that of procrastination – namely, we fail at resolutions because we ignore the process of emotion regulation.
So, where does this come from and what are we to do about it?
History of Goal Setting
In the 1960s, Edwin Locke, an emeritus Dean’s Professor at the University of Maryland developed “Goal Theory” which proposed setting specific, “difficult goals” resulted in better success than setting general, “easy goals.” In Locke’s conceptualization, there are five basic goal-setting principles: clarity, challenge, commitment, feedback, and task complexity.
In 1981, the now ubiquitous SMART Goal format was developed by George Doran. You know ‘smart’ goals, right? The process of goal & objective setting is now generalized to almost any setting: professional, organizational, personal, relational, mental health, etc. SMART Goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable (the original was Assignable), Realistic, and Time-specific.
Unpopular opinion: Despite being a behavioral therapist with loads of experience using SMART Goals, I’m not 100% committed to the tool. While on the surface, it’s snazzy, super concrete, and therefore “helpful,” it has two major flaws, both of which contribute to failed resolutions:
It fails to acknowledge the aspect of emotion avoidance. Circling back to Pychyl’s work, when we can’t tolerate unpleasant feelings, it won’t matter how specific, detailed or realistic the goal is – we will not meet it. Unfortunately, we’ll likely conclude there is something wrong with us, we don’t have enough willpower, etc. rather than simply including other skill sets; and
It proposes a dichotomous, ‘meet it or fail’ viewpoint of goal achievement. At least Locke’s framework included ‘feedback’ which could hold space for a process-oriented stance versus SMART Goals “did you meet the goal or not in the time frame?”
Habit Formation & Goals
In 2019, Kathy Caprino, Senior Contributor at Forbes wrote an excellent article “The Top 3 Reasons New Year’s Resolutions Fail and How Yours Can Succeed.” In it, she addressed the underlying issues of “what keeps you locked in specific ‘negative,’ self-sabotaging, or self-limiting behaviors that resist change,” versus the nitty-gritty of how to set goals and achieve them. This is a process-oriented approach. Caprino’s top three reasons:
Consciousness must change before behavior can change. – unconscious, core belief filter how we see the world, what we attract, what we say, and what we choose to do/not do.
You lack an accountability structure to help you sustain change – essentially this aligns with Clear’s recommendation to create an environment supportive of change.
Fear and resistance to achieve this big goal so you won’t let yourself – feeling flawed, that you’re abandoning others if you are successful, beliefs that more success equals more problems, or believing you’ll “make someone look bad,” if you succeed are part of this.
Practicing mindfulness, self-compassion, and creating environmental supports addresses these challenges and will foster a more successful, process-oriented approach. Blending them with “Atomic Habits” systems will increase the likelihood of growth.
I encourage and help clients create a framework that is process-based and skills-reinforced, synthesizing mental health processes with concepts similar to Clear & Caprino’s. Clients find it far more empowering for personal growth and development than ‘single-episode’ goals or task achievement.
Processes and Skills
If goal-setting difficulties have plagued you, you’ve perhaps read James Clear’s “Atomic Habits.” He, too, offers a process-based framework blending concrete behaviors with a systemic overview.
Here I outline James Clear’s 4 Laws of Behavior Change and suggest what to do with them from a coaching perspective. I’ve identified processes and specific skills found in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT):
Law No.1: Cue (signal) – Process: “noticing” the cue & environment – Skill: Observe & Describe objective information
Law No.2: Craving (want) – Process: “noticing” feelings & sensations – Skill: Allowing & Processing emotions/sensations
Law No.3: Response – Process: “doing accepting or avoiding" – Skill: Increase self-awareness & connection of thoughts, feelings, & actions
Law No.4: Reward – Process: make the “doing” likable or satisfying – Skill: Pos/Neg reinforcing repeat behaviors
Healing Habits, Not Goals
Executive Contributor to Brainz Magazine, Vincent DePasquale supports a deeper dive from goals to mindset in his article, “Now That It’s June– Is It Time To Reconsider Those New Year’s Resolutions As Mid-Year’s Resolutions? He suggests that growth be achieved not by “one-and-done items on a checklist to do and achieve at the beginning of a new year… But rather as key behaviors that need to be mastered as components of a master mindset and life plan.” In other words: process, not just outcome.
Even Clear himself suggests ditching the outcome-oriented goals for process-oriented systems. He states, “Forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.” He continues, “The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game…Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.”
Clear offers three key elements to differentiate a process orientation from a single-episode achievement focus. They are:
Small changes equal big changes over time,
Get back on track as quickly as possible, and
Create environmental ease/eliminate environmental friction
These three process-oriented elements, when seen as skills themselves and blended with the aforementioned DBT/CBT skills, allow any kind of habit, healing mindset, or change strategy to be more likely integrated into daily living; this is what I coin a “healing habit.” This ultimately supports ‘whole-self acceptance’ and mental well-being.
Conclusion
Goals and resolutions are often end-points, focused on single factors of living or behavior such as weight loss, getting debt-free, being more patient, buying a house or car, getting a promotion, etc. rather than elements of systemic change and whole-self acceptance.
Flaws within the traditional goal-setting model include ignoring the emotional regulation, or distress tolerance, aspects of growth and progression, and failing to create environmental support. Focusing on systemic, process-oriented features will bring more progress over time than breaking down a checklist for resolution-making.
If what you want is endurable change, cultivate integrating healing habits toward wholeness versus setting goals. Oh, by the way, “Cheers, and Happy New Year 2023!”
If you want help incorporating healing habits into your life to develop whole-self acceptance, connect with me about my coaching services via LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook where I have a private group Women Healing into Wholeness. You can check out my website resources here.
Shannan Blum, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Shannan is a Wholeness Coach and Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist with over 30 years experience helping individuals heal. She's worked extensively as a trauma-trained therapist helping others resolve trauma, depression, and anxiety responses. As a Wholeness Coach now, she helps individuals move beyond symptom reduction into holistic wellness, guiding them through a process of reclaiming well-being so they can finally feel consistently well. Having integrated childhood and religious trauma herself, she is skilled at guiding others toward whole-self acceptance. She uses evidence-based tools from DBT/CBT and Somatic Psychotherapy in her materials, courses, and books to help others "Reclaim, Rediscover, & Rebuild."
She recently published a series of books, "Therapy Thoughts: A 6-Month Guided Journal" for women, men, youth & non-gender and "Boundary Affirmations for Healing: Boundary Support for Women" print journal, eBook and Card Deck.
