Tips for tackling your New Year's resolutions

AccuWeather

Psychologist Dr. Susan Albers of the Cleveland Clinic speaks with AccuWeather offering tips on how people can get started with their New Year's resolutions and stay the course for the new year.

Transcript

00:00With the new year almost here, many of us are planning for a fresh start and new resolutions.

00:04I'm going to call you Ariella, which is your name instead of R or Ari. That's mine.

00:09I love it.

00:10Okay. Here with new tips on how to make those resolutions a success is Dr. Susan Albers.

00:17She's a doctor of psychology at Cleveland Clinic.

00:20Dr. Albers, thanks so much for being with us again. New Year's resolutions, they're often made,

00:25but can be kind of hard to keep. Why is that so difficult for people?

00:30Traditionally, people make the same resolution year after year. And it really shows the

00:37difference between what we want and what we do. And we can really use psychology to

00:41fill in that gap. There's three things that often stand in the way of New Year's resolutions.

00:48Number one is that they're not realistic. Number two, they are not attainable. They are things

00:54that are too far out of our reach. And third, we don't understand the concept of change. We often

01:00think that we make a decision and it's like a light switch. We turn on, we decide, and we get

01:04going. But instead, change is like a dimmer switch. We turn it on slowly and work on it consistently.

01:10And we can set up psychological tips that can help us to make it happen.

01:15Are you finding people are making different types of resolutions? And what are some of the goals?

01:22Traditionally, the most common New Year's resolutions have been around weight loss and

01:27increasing exercise, health-related goals. However, since the pandemic, there has been

01:32a significant shift. Mental health has become a priority. On New Year's resolutions list,

01:38you will see people making changes around their mental health. For example, increasing their sleep,

01:45decreasing their social media use, putting dieting aside and instead focusing on mindful eating. All

01:54of these things that help to decrease the stress in their life. Unfortunately, the pandemic,

01:59we saw an increase in anxiety, depression, loneliness. The good news is that it really

02:05put a spotlight on making mental health just as important as changing our physical health.

02:11I love that and good to see the changes here over the years. We talked about the difficulties in

02:16keeping those resolutions. So for people who want to stick to it this year, can you give us some

02:19strategies to succeed? How can you make resolutions part of your life in the weeks ahead?

02:27Choose a start goal instead of a stop goal. For example, instead of telling yourself to stop eating

02:33sugar, encourage yourself to begin eating fruits and vegetables. These new goals that we start can

02:41move aside old goals and it takes out the tug of war in our heads. Number two is to use what is

02:48known as habit stacking. This is taking an already existing goal or habit that we have every day

02:55and adding a new habit to it. For example, if I drink coffee every morning, the very next behavior

03:00I do is to go for a walk. Pairing these behaviors together makes it much easier to keep it going.

03:08There are so many different ways that we can also improve our mental health, whether it is journaling,

03:13downloading a mental health app, for example, Calm Headspace. Cleveland Clinic has many free ones as

03:19well, but prioritizing our mental health and taking a few moments to write down our goals can make a

03:25significant difference. Dr. Susan Albers, doctor of psychology at the Cleveland Clinic, thank you

03:32again for joining us and Happy New Year. Thank you. Happy New Year.

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