Will you stick to your New Year resolutions?

Every January it is hard to avoid the talk of 'new year - new you' wherever you look. For women on a career break, the new year is often a time to set goals and make plans for returning to your career or re-inventing yourself. All too frequently, however, your initial enthusiasm and drive can quickly wane, everyday life takes over and the project of returning to work becomes too hard to pursue.  

Why don't resolutions work?
There are four key reasons why new year resolutions fail. It is usually because they are one or more of the following: 

1. too general and vague e.g. find a part-time job; do more networking
2. too big and daunting e.g. retrain for a new career in x; work out what to do next
3. unrealistic e.g. land a new role by Easter
4. not sufficiently action-oriented, with little idea of the steps required for achievement

All of these factors can lead to a rapid drop in motivation, as discussed by Julianne in her post on maintaining New Year motivation at the start of 2015.

A new approach
I was reminded of how often resolutions fail by a friend challenging me about how I would achieve my stated resolution 'to create more space for myself'. When she asked how I would achieve this, I had no answer. Her question forced me to acknowledge that my resolution was too general and vague and that I hadn't taken the step of converting my idea into action. I saw failure looming!

Her suggestion was to try a new approach to make the resolution stick: do something specific, simple and quick and do it daily for a month. By doing something new, even for only five minutes each time, on a daily basis, I will be able to make tangible progress on establishing a new habit. This approach is backed up by psychological research into how new habits get established. Linking the new behaviour to a specific cue, such as 'on waking' or 'before dinner' can also reinforce the habit formation.

Your 5 Minutes a Day return to work plan
How could you use this 'specific, quick and daily' approach to support your goal of returning to work? Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Research useful updating or skills-development courses
• Read a relevant news/journal article or book chapter
• Connect with old and new contacts on LinkedIn
• Read &/or contribute to a professional post on a LinkedIn Group
• Email a contact to set up an informal chat
• Work on a single section of your CV or LinkedIn profile

Of course you are likely to frequently spend more than five minutes a day, if returning to work is an important priority for you. However, by following the principle of doing a small thing every day, you will get into the habit of creating time to work on your return, so avoiding the common trap that everyday life gets in the way. This means that you cannot fail to make progress and will find it much easier to stick with and achieve your resolution by year end.

For further reading
How to form a habit - BPS Digest

Posted by Katerina

Are you your own worst enemy?

'I've failed in my career', 'I can't be like other people in the corporate world', 'No-one will employ me', 'I'm no good at networking', 'I'm never going to solve this' 

Do these statements sound familiar to you?  Are they a regular soundtrack that runs through your head?  If so, you are in good company.  Self-critical thoughts are familiar to everyone. They can have their uses: thinking critically about the world, yourself and others can be a driver of success and is a vital component of good judgement and decision-making.

However, if your critical thoughts are largely directed towards yourself and aren't regulated or balanced by other more positive kinds of thoughts, the result can be low self-belief and loss of confidence. The constant repetition of such thoughts can lead to the belief that they are actually true facts.  'I'm my own worst enemy' is how one of my clients described this pattern of thinking, with a mixture of pride and sheepishness.  While she was proud of her self-awareness she also recognised that she was simultaneously being unduly harsh on herself.  And she didn't believe that it was possible to prevent the thoughts from happening, even though she could see the benefits of doing so.

Reducing the self-critical thoughts

The first thing to realise about this pattern of thinking is that it is a habit which has probably formed over many years and, as with other habits, changing it will take time, effort and practice.  The first step is to catch yourself when you are having these thoughts.  If you can do this, then you give yourself the option of challenging your thought pattern using the following ideas.  These have helped many of my clients to move towards being more of a friend to themselves than an enemy:

• give the critical voice a name (perhaps it reminds you of someone you know?) and acknowledge that it is present, without giving it more attention
• treat the soundtrack like a radio station and either turn down the volume or switch station
• spend some time listing all the things you are capable of and have achieved.  Re-read this list (particularly when the critical voice appears) and keep adding to it 
• ask those around you, who love you, for some feedback.  Our partners, spouses and children are notoriously bad at giving us positive feedback and are great at complaining!  It is easy for them to assume that we know we are doing well, unless we expressly ask them
• imagine that you are your own best friend and ask this friend what she admires about you
• mindfulness and meditation are useful tools for learning how to let thoughts pass without becoming fixed on them or even believing they are true

If you have any other tips on how you have toned down your own critical voice, please share them with us.

Posted by Katerina - Co-founder Women Returners