Sustainable Change > All or Nothing New Year's Resolutions

The way we think about January and New Year's Resolutions may cause more harm than good. Why not take a more compassionate approach?

This first half of January is a time of potent reflection and renewal.

However, when that calendar refresh button doesn’t magically make everything better, sometimes our inner dialogue turns against us.

The January 1st desire for total lifestyle makeovers, or at least for a quick renewal, not only harms our mental health but also our physical well being.

All or Nothing

An all or nothing approach to change is among the worst things for your health. This is not a statement that I can back up with research studies, but it is backed up by biological basics, by personal experience and treating many suffering patients.

What matters most is putting one foot in front of the other, even when we stumble. For example, I will celebrate you getting to your physical therapy exercises 3+ ish times per week as opposed to zero. It’s more important to eat enough fruits and vegetables every day than to go fully vegan for a month.

The best thing we can do today, this month, and all year, is the ONE thing that will enforce good daily, weekly, or monthly habits that become routine, established, and thoughtless (in the way that you don’t have to “think” about like brushing your teeth).

Please Don’t Be Hard on Yourself

This week, I was moved by a related, 6 year old exchange between a Redditor and Arnold Schwarzennegger:

https://www.reddit.com/r/bodybuilding/comments/968445/comment/e3yvmhr/

Redditor: “I know this is pandering but I've been depressed for months and haven't hit the gym during that time. Mr. Schwarzenegger, can you please tell me to get off my lazy ass and hit the gym? I swear to everything I hold dear that I will snap out of it and go.”

Gov. Schwarzennegger: “I’m not going to be that hard on you,” he said. “Please don’t be that hard on yourself. We all go through challenges, we all go through failure. Sometimes life is a workout. But the key thing is you get up. Just move a little. Roll out of bed and do some pushups or go for a walk. Just do something. One step at a time, I hope you feel better and get back to the gym. But don’t beat yourself up, because that’s just useless talk. It doesn’t get you closer to the gym. And don’t be afraid to ask for help. Good luck.”

5 Minutes is a Great Start

This exchange reminded me of hearing Amy Ippoliti, a well known yoga teacher, speak in 2011 about how 5 minutes of yoga asana daily is better than zero.

It seems like such simple advice now.

But at the time, my mindset was very much more steeped in an “old-school”, almost puritanical, approach to yoga. Although I was never an Ashtanga yoga practitioner, the culture of the yoga world had absorbed the Ashtanga ideal of a daily asana practice, ideally of 1.5-2 hours daily, at or before sunrise.

Was it even yoga if I didn’t roll out my mat, face the sun and spend at least an hour of quiet time in moving meditation before my roommates awoke?

As a night owl with a million interests and responsibilities, that was never going to be my reality (when not living in a retreat center). The discouragement I felt when snoozing my alarm could easily turn into despair, especially since, as a yoga teacher myself, I wanted to be a role model.

Hearing Amy validate 5 minutes of asana as a great start (which it is) helped me to squash negative self-talk, to move when I didn’t particularly want to, to attend the classes that I could attend, and to be easy on myself when I needed ease.

(Fun side story: two years later, I met Amy and got to film my first online anatomy courses for Amy’s company).

Later, I read research showing that there are genetic set-points for “early birds” and “night owls”, which further reinforced a softening of internal expectations.

That advice was far more helpful for me in creating positive, lifelong habits than any 30 day challenge. It is a compassionate mindset, and vital for avoiding injury from overuse as well.

30 Day Challenges

January can be a minefield for those of us steeped in all or nothing thinking.

Unfortunately, nearly all of us have been exposed to this “All or Nothingness” in the world around us. (We also seem to think celebrities like Sabrina Carpenter appeared from nowhere, when in fact she was performing since 2009 and only in the last year became a household name.)

One of the ways this societal absolutism is associated with January comes through in 30 Day Challenges.

These challenges are widely used to re-engage and reward people for attending 30 fitness classes or checking in at a gym 30 times in a row. They have positive intentions, too, about creating lifelong habits.

But the implementation of these challenges is mostly unrealistic at best (is it truly sustainable to attend classes every day?) and harmful at worst (the body’s tissues really need rest in order to repair, as well as variability and time to adapt).

Why don’t we theme our challenges like: “Average one class per week over a year”?

Achievable.

Realistic.

Sustainable.

To me, that is much more exciting.

I previously wrote about 30 Day Challenges here: https://yogaanatomyacademy.com...

Less is so much more.

What are you resolving do differently this month or this year?

If the change you want to make is big, consider breaking it down into its smallest part or smallest demand. What are the barriers to you doing the thing again and again, day in, day out?

Duolingo is tremendously successful, in part because it “rewards” its language learners who do lessons as little as 2 minutes a day with a “streak”. My current streak is 616 days. I have probably spent more time studying languages on Duolingo, over a longer time period, than had I signed up for multiple semester long classes. Some days I only have time to do one lesson. But I never skip.

Maybe we all need apps with built-in rewards?

Or more likely, maybe we need to ask ourselves questions like “What is the smallest amount of daily steps that would be meaningfully more than I averaged the year before?”

All or nothing thinking is harmful, and unfortunately everywhere. It can wreak havoc on your body’s tissues (a topic for another post), as well as your self-esteem. It is inevitable that you will not be able to perform at 100% every day in the month of January or any month.

This year, our Wellilo wish for you is that any positive changes you make are sustainable, rather than simply big.

To help you along that path, here is a collection of our writings on habits to spark new ideas and deeper layers of self compassion.

https://wellilo.com/blog/mundane-lever-habits

https://wellilo.com/blog/creating-atomic-wellness

https://wellilo.com/blog/yoga-habit-change-science

Originally published 1/1/2025

Authored by Ariele Foster

Categories: : Habits, Humaning