New Year’s resolutions are an ancient custom that supposedly originated from Babylon 4000 years ago.
To ingratiate themselves with the gods, the inhabitants promised to repay debts and return tools they had borrowed.
New Year, New possibilities
In today’s society, New Year’s resolutions are mainly about promises you make to yourself. The motives are often to improve one’s own health, exercise more, lose weight and eat healthier. Others will stop old habits such as cutting out sugar, stopping smoking or throwing away the snuff box.
The list of New Year’s resolutions is endless, but how do you stay motivated and carry them out?
Øyvind Hammer, former mentor and adviser to the skiing king Ole Einar Bjørndalen, knows a lot about motivation. He believes that New Year’s resolutions are in many ways a good thing. A new year gives you the opportunity to think about whether you live life the way you want, or whether you have to make changes.
NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION: Mentor, adviser and author Øyvind Hammer tells Good Morning Norway that you should prepare yourself if you want to carry out your New Year’s resolution. Photo: Agnes Alstad Mogstad / Good morning Norway
– How do you think we can motivate ourselves to carry out New Year’s resolutions?
– It is important to remember that it is not you as a person who needs to be fixed, it is what you do that needs to be changed. Many people talk about becoming a better version of themselves. I thought that was silly, you are who you are.
Prepare for the changes you want to make
To Good morning Norway, he talks about the preparation phase. It’s the time you spend before you make the change, you think enough is enough. Then you can ask yourself the questions:
- Why should I make these changes?
- How smart is what I’m doing now?
- Is this something I should do or something I want to do because it is important to me?
Hammer’s concrete example is: “Which grandfather do I want to be? Do I want to be the one who gets wheeled around in a wheelchair or do I want to be the one who is active, goes skiing and climbs trees with the grandchildren?”. It is easier to do what is important to you rather than what you should do.
– Everyone knows that exercise is healthy. You get more energy and live longer. Nevertheless, many people give up on this New Year’s resolution. What is happening to our self-discipline?
– When you started SATS as a New Year’s resolution, you are driven by pain. You want to get rid of the bad conscience you have after spending time on the couch instead of working out. Since this is pain driven, you start justifying yourself, with excuses.
Furthermore, Hammer says that changes are uncomfortable and one must have motivation to stand in that discomfort. Often it is the inner voice that comes to us and we start with excuses such as that we only live once and are allowed to enjoy ourselves, or that we are a bit tired and will do the training tomorrow.
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Then you have to bring up the good and real reason why the change is important, and that this is something you want, not something you should.
If you have long-term goals such as doing this so that you can be active with your grandchildren, it is easier to implement.
Motivated by the daughter
One thing is the list of everything to start with when ringing in the new year. Then there are the promises about what to stop, such as quitting smoking or throwing away the snuff box.
– According to yourself, you were a big snuffer. What made you quit?
– Five years ago, my twelve-year-old daughter had a sugar freeze for a month. I suggested joining her on this. Then she pointed to my lip and laughed: “Daddy, snus is your sugar.”
SNUSFRI: Hammer’s motivation for quitting was that he wanted to be a role model for his daughter. Photo: Stian Lysberg Solum / NTB
Until then, Hammer had stopped sniffing several times, but always started again.
Since his daughter managed to go to children’s birthday parties without eating cakes and sweets, he wanted to stop sniffing. His motivation for carrying out snuff was to be his daughter’s role model.
Hammer has been snus-free since then, and he writes about the method he used in the book “Snusfri”.
If the New Year’s resolutions do not hold, it is entirely possible to get a fresh start for the rest of the year. Hammer himself has what he calls “Monday resolution”.
– The reason should not be a guilty conscience. It is important to get to the point where you really want and believe that: “I want to do this”, you want to achieve something. Therein lies the motivation for the implementation.
