Tag Archives: resolutions

Happiness, Love, Personal Reflections, Writing

New Year’s Resolutions, Intentions, and Goals: A Guide to What Works—Sometimes

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I’m done with New Year’s resolutions. This year, I’m changing from New Year’s resolutions to New Year’s intentions.

My first New Year’s intention is to be on time, which is why I’m writing this blog about nine days into 2026.

New Year’s resolutions, intentions, and goal-setting are distinctions with very little difference. You know what they say, “A rose by any other name still smells the same.” But, several years ago, New Year’s intentions became chic. That means if your goal—like mine—for 2026 is to become more chic, you should set intentions, because goals stink.

Whether we call them resolutions, intentions, or goals, ambition for self-improvement is based on one central idea in mental and behavioral health: We all want to be better, to do better, and to become better versions of ourselves.

But self-improvement has never been and never will be easy. What gets in the way? Almost anything. We get distracted. We lose motivation. We get in our own way. We get annoyed and enraged at a world over which we have no control and then give up on the things we do have control over. If you’ve become frustrated at improving yourself (or our American democracy), join the club.

Before I offer a list of tips for bending resolutions, intentions, or goals to your will—so you can remake yourself, here’s a big caveat: Nothing always works. Just because I list it below, it doesn’t mean it will work for you. Life is an experiment. To effectively change your behavior is a long and winding experimental path. Your first resolution, intention, or goal should be to learn as much as you can as you experiment (and intermittently fail) at your efforts for self-improvement. Now, here’s the list of ideas you can try to make yourself a better YOU in 2026.

  1. Linger, reflect, and contemplate on what you want to change about yourself and your life. Impulsive goals last until you get to your next impulse. You may want to consult with someone about what you want to change and why. When building intentions, clarity helps. Finding your why helps too.
  2. Don’t set DUMB goals. I could have suggested that you set SMART goals, but that’s boring and passé and I’m chic. DUMB goals are goals that involve factors outside your control. If your goal is to experience even more frustration then you’re already experiencing, then be sure to make your goal all about somebody else, like, for example, getting your romantic partner, your parent, or your child to communicate better or be on time or stop criticizing you. If you want a snowball’s chance of success, put the resolution, intention, or goal within your circle of control.
  3. Make yourself a bad-ass plan. You shouldn’t rely on your mythical willpower or your vision board or somebody else’s plan. You know yourself. Make a plan that incorporates knowledge from your previous successes. Use your knowledge of your skills for avoidance and your tendency toward distraction to build yourself a unique plan for change.
  4. Set yourself up for easy actions. Let’s say you want to run a marathon or lose 20 pounds or bench press 220 lbs. Would you expect success tomorrow? Of course not. If you’re chic like me, set short-term and long-term intentions.
  5. Go public. If you tell a few people about your goals, you’re more likely to stick with them. Why? It’s not rocket science. Who wants to humiliate themselves via public failure? Also, it doesn’t hurt to check your realism with your friends and family. If your family tells you you’re foolish, use that info in one of two ways: (a) re-evaluate and re-set your goal or (b) use your family’s lack of faith in you as motivation to prove them wrong.
  6. Physically, mentally, and emotionally celebrate short-term success. One of the best tricks for habit change is to celebrate the small steps you make toward success. If you want to engage in social justice activities, give yourself a high-five or a fist pump or a verbal yessssss when you take a tiny step toward meeting with a like-minded civic group. Your brain will feel the love and help you continue toward your goal.
  7. Manage your self-talk (or not). Inevitably, your brain will try to sabotage you. You’ll hear an inner voice of doubt. Words like “You can’t do it” will rise up to smite you and your efforts. Don’t bother wondering where they came from. Either just notice them, say hello, and then let them float away or push back on them with evidence and effort.

This is a short list of a few ideas. There’s much more out there in the world, should you be interested. One warning: If you’re reading or watching something that promises magically easy self-improvement “hacks,” just get out your clicker and change the channel, because, if you’re chic like me, then you know self-improvement requires a savvy plan and sustained effort.

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For more information:

An article on “Better Habits” from Time Magazine by Professor Fogg of Stanford University: https://time.com/5756833/better-control-emotions-better-habits/

An old “Hidden Brain” podcast called “Creatures of Habit.” https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/creatures-of-habit/

A short goal-setting assignment I’ve used with my happiness classes:

Active Learning 2 Goal-SettingDownload

An even shorter “Change one thing” reading from the happiness challenge:

Happy Challenge Change One ThingDownload

Happiness, Personal Reflections, Writing

Goodbye 2020 . . . You’re Nothing but History Now

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Happy New Year!

As a method for putting 2020 behind me and focusing on a hopeful 2021, I engaged in some forward thinking (rather unusual for me) and wrote an op-ed piece for the Missoulian newspaper to be published TODAY! Below, I’ve pasted the beginning of the article, along with a link to the whole darn thing in the Missoulian. If you feel so moved, please share and like this. . . and I hope you experience the return of happiness in 2021.

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The Return of Happiness: Your 2021 Guide

Usually a great source of snarky humor, the Urban Dictionary lists its top definition for 2020 as, “The worst year ever.” Sadly, even the Urban Dictionary couldn’t find creative inspiration from the horrors of 2020. Goodbye, 2020; you will not be missed.

. . . for the rest of the article, click below:

https://missoulian.com/opinion/columnists/the-return-of-happiness-your-2021-guide/article_b513a4aa-a644-5dd6-8cd2-c6c23f7a1f83.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=user-share

Happiness, Personal Reflections, Writing

Your Weekend Homework: The Return to Happiness

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As we approach the end of 2020, many of us are looking forward–like never before in the history of time–to turning that calendar to a new page and a new year. Readers of the Washington Post were recently surveyed and wrote, 2020 has been exhausting, relentless, and heartbreaking. Let’s put 2020 behind us and never look back (other than to remind ourselves of mistakes we shouldn’t make again).

In honor of turning the calendar to 2021, I’m working on an Op-Ed piece titled “The Return to Happiness.” The point of the piece is to acknowledge how good it is to move on, but also discuss the nature of New Year’s resolutions and how to make resolutions that have a reasonable chance of being accomplished. In the end, I’ll be making a pitch for everyone to sign up for my University of Montana course “The Art & Science of Happiness.” Well, not everyone, but anyone who wants to have a cool online “university” experience that provides an opportunity to test out the best, evidence-based, approaches to happiness on planet earth.

The course starts in January, and, for the first time ever, will be offered to “community” participants as a non-credit experience. This means EVERYONE can sign up. The catch is that it costs $150. But if you do the math, that’s only $10/week or about $3.50 an hour to discuss, learn, experiment with, and establish new happiness habits for 2021.

Here’s a description of the course:

Over the past 20 years, research on happiness has flourished. Due to the natural interest that most Americans have for happiness, research findings (and unfounded rumors) have been distributed worldwide. Every day, happiness is promoted via online blogs, newspaper and magazine articles, Twitter posts, Instagram videos, TikTok, and through many other media and social media venues. Ironically, instead of increases in national happiness, most epidemiological research indicates that all across the U.S., children, adolescents, adults, and seniors are experiencing less happiness, more depression, and higher suicide rates. To help sort out scientific reality from unsubstantiated rumors, in this course, we will describe, discuss, and experience the art and science of happiness. We will define happiness, read a popular happiness book, examine scientific research studies, try out research experiments in class, engage in extended happiness lab assignments, and use published instruments to measure our own happiness and well-being. Overall, we will focus on how happiness and well-being are manifest in the physical, cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, spiritual/cultural, behavioral, and contextual dimensions of our lives.

Other things to know: If you take the course as a community, non-credit, participant, you won’t take the quizzes, or get graded, and assignments will be optional. However, you will be asked to participate in small group lab sessions designed to give you (and others) a chance to talk and listen to each other as you experience and experiment with specific happiness assignments.

If you’re interested, you can register at this link: https://www.campusce.net/umextended/course/course.aspx?C=627&pc=13&mc=&sc

If you know friends who could use a happiness boost for 2021, share this post with them. And if you’ve got questions, you know where to find me.

Have a fantastic weekend.

Personal Reflections, Writing

My 2020 New Year’s Resolutions – Part 1

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This year, for the first time in recorded history, my New Year’s resolutions are experiencing a well-earned deferral.

I should note that me deferring my New Year’s resolutions has nothing to do with procrastination, bone spurs, sexual indiscretions in the oval office, impeachment, or my inability to construct a sentence that doesn’t include irreverent sarcasm. Instead, the deferral is about my recent epiphany: Making resolutions during the first week of January is an act of great folly!

I’d explain the rationale underlying my epiphany, but like many procrastination rationalizations, I’m still working on it. Actually, that’s not true—I’ve already worked out the rationale—but I’m still working on a full-length article describing why it’s pure foolishness to set aspirational goals on New Year’s Day, along with how and when you should set your goals if you want to be successful. This particular blog post (the one you’re reading now) flows from my sneaky effort to get your anticipation building.

Think about this: I’m giving you permission to wait on your New Year’s resolutions. You should make no resolutions until you’ve read the full-length article. Said differently, I’m giving you permission to procrastinate! Now can you feel the anticipation building?

By the way, if you happen to have advice on where to submit said article, please immediately share your ideas with me. Don’t wait on that. Given that my success in submitting snarky op-ed pieces is small and shrinking like a 21st century glacier, I need your help now.

As a partial spoiler, I’d like to share three things.

  1. I’m seriously contemplating punctuality as one of my New Year’s resolutions.
  2. The working title of my upcoming New Year’s masterpiece on goal-setting is: Don’t Wait: Why You Should Start Rethinking Your New Year’s Resolutions Right Now
  3. The opening paragraph of the draft of my article starts like this:

There’s an old Tom Cheney New Yorker cartoon that features a guy in a cap standing on a street corner next to a paper shredding machine. There’s a sign leaning on his shredder that reads,

Shred Your

New Year’s Resolutions

50 cents

That’s enough for now.

Like I said, just wait, let the anticipation build, and while you’re waiting—and procrastinating—be sure to take time to feel good about the waiting.

 

Counseling and Psychotherapy Theory and Practice, Personal Reflections, Writing

Neuroscience New Year’s Resolutions for 2016

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In case you forgot or never knew, 1990 to 2000 was championed as the decade of the brain. You would think one decade would be enough, but judging by how much of a darling neuroscience is in the media, it looks like the brain will be hogging the whole 21st century too. And so in celebration of our perpetually “New Brain Science,” I’m offering six neuroscience-based New Year’s resolutions for 2016

1. For years, the Dali Lama has been advising everyone to develop a “Loving Kindness” meditation practice. Even if his advice doesn’t change the world, having a consistent loving kindness meditation practice can change your brain. Mindfulness meditation strengthens a region in the brain called the insular cortex, an area broadly linked to self-control and good judgment. This makes 2016 a good time to start meditating. We could all use a little more self-control and good judgment.

2. You should sit down for this one. Or stand up. And then sit down again. This is because scientific research supports brain-body connections. Exercise facilitates everything from sleep to sex. If you want a sharper brain for 2016, then stand-up and get walking or stretching or running or lifting or dancing your way to clearer thinking.

3. Last year might have been the year of the gut. There’s been plenty of talk about the “gut” being our second brain. Of course, this isn’t about growing your gut or striving for a dad-bod. It’s all about digestive health. The best way to get your second brain to support your mental health is to feed it whole, fresh foods, probiotics, and fermented foods (like kombucha, sauerkraut, and kimchee), while avoiding the evils of eating highly processed white sugar/white flour.

4. Exercise is great and good sex may be better, but loving and gentle touch is the bomb. Make 2016 the year—not only for consensual hugs and kisses—but also for shoulder and neck and foot massages. You can even put brushing each other’s hair on your “this-just-might-improve-my-mental-health” to-do list.

5. In 2015 sleep research was hot. It’s more obvious than ever that sleep deprivation is generally bad for your brain; it contributes to clinical depression, suicide, accidents, and illness. Finding a way to sleep well in 2016 means turning off your screens at least 30 minutes before bedtime, cutting out the caffeine after 2pm, and establishing a steady personal and family sleep routine. Sleep is the new black.

6. For those of us in the helping professions, the biggest neuroscience news is all about what psychotherapists call empathic listening. Turns out, listening in an effort to understand others grows the brain in ways similar to mindfulness meditation. That means the more you practice listening with empathy, the more you’ll grow that all-important insular cortex . . . and the more you grow your insular cortex, the less likely you are to engage in violent behaviors that threaten the planet. So if you want a more peaceful planet, put empathic listening on your New Year’s resolution list.

There’s one big principle that underlies all of the new brain science: Whatever behaviors you rehearse, practice, or repeat, are likely to strengthen your skills and grow your brain in those particular regions. What this means is that if your goal is to be a couch potato for 2016, you should spend lots of time couch potatoing so you can develop mad skills in that area, with a neurological net to match. On the other hand, if you want a healthy brain and body and awesome friendships and romance in your life, you should engage in the activities listed above—especially the mindfulness meditation and empathic listening—and you’ll grow a brain and skills that just might bring health, love, and peace in 2016.

Note: I submitted this awesome resolution list to a couple newspapers just before the New Year, but only got rejections. And so I decided to submit it to myself and, voila!, it got published right here on my very own blog (smiley face). Please share and pass it on so that all the newspaper editors who keep rejecting my work start feeling the deep regret they deserve.

Outstanding in Field