New Year’s Resolutions

In an apt segue from that last post, lets us journey straight from Bourbon Balls to the topic of New Year’s resolutions. Do we only make them to break them? Last week, the Times featured a nice list of realistic resolutions from Dr. Mehmet Oz: Commit to family night, go to bed earlier, floss.

Whether your goals are health-related or not, the point is that you’ll have more success if you make them practical, specific, and simple. Which got me thinking about a little gem in our library, One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way, by Robert Maurer, Ph.D. In a nutshell, the book argues that human resistance to change is a protective evolutionary device. This is the safe path to the cave; that one’s probably laden with poison ivy. Don’t try that leaf; it’s probably poisonous. Unfortunately, in a relatively safe modern context, this instinct can get perverted in a whole lot of self-defeating ways. The path to the gym is paved with scary, hungry bears! The brilliant solution, developed by Japanese corporations and used by Dr. Maurer in his therapeutic practice, is to break down the steps to the desired change into increments so small they won’t awaken your anti-change fear sensors.

Essentially, you’d break down your New Year’s resolution into a whole bunch of tiny steps. One woman in One Small Step started exercising by marching in place during television commercials for one minute a day. If you’re looking to make a change and feeling stuck, give Kaizen (and, ahem, our book) a chance.

My resolution? Have more fun in 2010. (No, it’s not specific, but since it’s positive and relatively easy to implement, I figure I can give myself a pass.) What’s yours?