For better and worse, the new year brings with it a lot of expectations.

I love working towards goals and I fully back anyone who is driven to take personal responsibility for the things they can influence and change. But we've all heard the anecdote: lots of people take out a gym membership in January and rarely attend past February.

Why? Because most people try to make too big a change, too frequently, too soon. (Yep, I’m in the ‘most people’ category too).

Unrealistic expectations set us up to fail (or fall asleep) at the first hurdle.

Small changes in behaviour that are repeated (and scaled up) over time allow new patterns of behaviour to form so that new habits can stick.

It might be time to set some modest goals

Last month, I left the city I called home for 10 years (Oxford, UK) and moved abroad (Nijmegen, NL). It’s been a pretty challenging time, so I have been putting into practise something I am generally useless at: sticking to modest goals (which is not to say that I'm great at sticking to grand goals either).

This is an insight into what I usually do...

Step 1: the ‘yay’ moment = energy! motivation! drive! do all the things!
Step 2: grind, grind, grind = overwork in all areas
Step 3: exhaustion = become a grumpy slug
Step 4: rest = do nothing (anxiously and resentfully)
Return to Step 1

I'm tired just listing that.

I got serious about overturning this habit in 2019 and then the pandemic happened, life sh*t happened, and I had to renege on that promise to myself out of necessity for a bit.

Well, it's now feels like time to get back on track.

How? By setting some modest goals, which—as ever—is somewhat easier said than done...

Browse

Most recent

About

Quick links

Membership