What’s your thoughts on new year’s resolutions?

​I used to set new year’s resolutions every year until I realised they didn’t work for me. My new year’s resolutions were the same year on year, vague, unmeasurable and I almost always broke them within a month of setting them!

​My new year’s resolutions went along the lines of – exercise more, eat more healthy, drink less alcohol, spend less, save more, invest more, read more, write more….you get the gist. These resolutions but they only made me feel like I was going around in circles, which I was

Everything changed for the better when I forgot about new year’s resolutions and started setting annual goals and using metrics to measure progress towards these goals

• My new years resolutions were wishy washy and never created sustainable change
• My annual goals are focused, measurable and resulted in sustainable change​

​Ten years ago I set a goal to stay off alcohol for the month of January, I had done this successfully for many years yet never got further than the 31st January.

Something was different about staying off alcohol that January. I’m not sure what it was but I decided to extend my goal to a year, a big goal and a big sacrifice at the time as I had a fondness (as we say in Ireland  😂) for alcohol.​

I reached my goal that year and stayed alcohol free. I then set an even bigger goal to stay off alcohol for good, for the rest of my life.

​This wasn’t a hard decision to make. After being alcohol free for a year I realised the many benefits of an alcohol free life and I also saw what alcohol had been costing me in terms of my time, health and finances.

​Since 1st January 2025 I’m now successfully 10 years into that lifetime goal and I can say being alcohol free is one of the best decisions I have ever made.

Was it hard – yes, do I miss alcohol – not really (maybe a little sometimes), have I been tempted to drink alcohol – yes, when my Dad passed away I wanted to drown all my pain in any substance that would have that effect, yet I didn’t. I would have thrown away 8.5 years of sobriety and so I found healthier ways to deal with my pain.

That’s the difference between new years resolutions and goal setting. Theres no real accountability with new years resolutions and so they never worked for me. Goal setting is different, goal setting is like making a promise to yourself. If you don’t keep your promises to yourself, only one person suffers, you.

​What promises will you make to yourself this year?

Are you ready to set some big, audacious goals?

Whatever goals you want to achieve this year and beyond, start small and build on the success you make every day, day by day. That’s how sustainable change is created, one step at a time, one day at a time.

​If you are interested in changing your relationship with alcohol I highly recommend you watch this excellent interview with Rich Roll (my favourite podcaster) and Andy Ramage who is an alcohol free advocate, it’s fascinating – The Insane Benefits of Going Alcohol Free. 

Andy’s instagram page is also excellent in terms of information on improving our relationship with alcohol.

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Thanks for reading 🙏

Siobhain

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