Everyday Systems: nosdiet: message 2516 of 3212

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Welcome to all of you who joined over the last week.
I'll be sending posting individual responses as I pick
through my overloaded inbox, but that may take a few
days and I just wanted to get some kind of
acknowledgment out now.

New years resolutions are tricky things. I think it's
great that there is a time of year for people to
reflect on how to better themselves, but you know, a
year is a long time. Resolutions are proverbially
broken, and I think this large scope has something to
do with it. If you say "I'm not going to do bad
something x" for the next 365 days and then you break
down on day 5, what's going to happen on the rest of
those 360 days you have left? You've already busted
your resolution, you don't get a clean slate till next
year, the temptation is wallow in failure till then. 

Diet is a long term problem, but willpower is
notoriously short term. The trick is how to get on
track long term without overtaxing short term
willpower, to use limited, temporary will to create
permanent habits. Will's scope is weeks, tops. Weeks
are the starting point for habit. Match your
resolutions to that overlap. Instead of resolving for
a year, say "this year I resolve to go on the nosdiet
(or whatever) for 3 consecutive weeks, no funny
stuff." Slash out every day you stay on it (or use the
red/green/yellow failure/success/exempt habit traffic
light system described in previous posts). If you can
make it that long, the rest of the year will be a much
more tractable problem. Three weeks is attainable for
pretty much everyone. That's very important. It may
not be easy, but you are far less likely to despair
and give up than if you've got months and seasons to
go. And if you fail, you don't have to wait till next
year for a blank slate. You can start again fresh
tomorrow. Most people need a few failures under their
belt before they can succeed. Don't hope for this, but
budget for it. Give inspiration the quick turnaround
time it needs.

Yes, 3 weeks is a somewhat arbitrary number, more on
that here:

http://nosdiet.com/group/2118

Show me a self help system that *doesn't* rely on
arbitrary numbers. :-) 

Another piece of new years advice: try to focus on one
thing at a time. Yes, you may have many bad habits
that are in pressing need of reform, but your
resources are limited: divide and conquer. The odds of
reforming a single bad habit are much greater if you
give it all your available attention. I'm not saying
don't start a new exercise project while starting a
new diet etc., but be clear about which has the
priority. If all goes well, you'll quickly and
thoroughly beat habit a and be able to redeploy your
full strength against habit b. I didn't start
shovelglove, for example, until I was a few months
into nosdiet. This was by accident, but lucky
accident, I think. I don't know if I would have been
able to start both at once. Even Ben Franklin, with
his ledger of virtues, couldn't do better than one at
a time. I don't know about you, but I'm no Ben
Franklin.

Best to you all, oldies and newbies,

Reinhard