416: Why 92% of New Year's Resolutions Fail (Hidden Truth)

It's very subjective, day to day to what's going on in your world. If you're feeling bad about yourself that day, you're not likely to take those great actions. You're more likely to say no to it. You're more likely to say, I'll do it tomorrow. But when you're feeling really solid in your vision, you know it's coming to fruition. You are that final version of yourself. You're about to take different actions. Hi. I want to welcome you to Midlife Conversations. I'm Natalie Jill, your host and I help midlife women redefine and rebrand aging. On this podcast, I do what I do best, taking complicated information and conversations around aging that are relevant to us now and breaking it all down simply with actionable steps that you can implement to level up your life. Because your best years are yet to come. I also regularly interview some of the most inspiring people living in their best midlife years. On this show, I cover topics about our health, hormones, navigating weight, blood sugars, our mood, focus changes, even our relationships, career changes, beauty and more.

New Year's resolutions, especially when it comes to health, our fitness, our bodies, what we want to uplevel for ourselves. Why do they seem to year after year, feel new? But then we re look at it at the end of the year and you say, what happened to my goals? Why didn't I achieve them? And then we end up going to a blank slate and saying, I'll try it again, I'll try it again, I'll try it again. But why is it that New Year's resolutions tend to fail so frequently? And what can we do to shift that? Today on Midlife Conversations, I'm going to dive into exactly what goes wrong with resolutions, how to shift that so that we can bring them to fruition and make them feel really fun and empowering and actually have a great formula coming into the new year. So I'm Natalie Jill. For those of you new to my podcast and what you don't know about me yet is goal achievement is really the backbone of what has made any of my programs successful. So when I look at even fat loss and fitness, what I had really built my business around, really the reason that became so successful with women, the reason that formula worked, was this backbone of being able to work backwards from a goal. So I'm going to be outlining today for you the ten step process to really design a goal to bring it to fruition. That will feel not just empowering, but it will feel very doable for you. So before we dive into that, let's just look at why do goals fall apart? What goes wrong when we hit, when we set a New Year's resolution or goal at any time, when we lose at it, we don't bring it to fruition and then we get into self beat up. What goes wrong there? Well, number one, poor goal structure. Most people set very vague, overwhelming, too big of a goal. And it's like, I just want to be skinny or I just want to gain some muscle, or I just want to be toned or I just want to feel healthy. Those are very vague goals. And when we have a very vague goal, it's very easy to just fall back into comfort zone and not take action towards those goals. So a vague goal is one big reason why goals don't come to fruition. A goal is too, too big. The second reason goals don't come to fruition is when we rely on willpower alone. You see, you're going to always want to gravitate towards what's comfortable. I've told women, told many women in the past, that sometimes when you're out and about and you're in the nice outfit and you're being social and maybe the outfit's a little bit more fitted than normal and you're being social and you're around friends and if you're feeling uncomfortable in your body, you're really going to notice it then because you're in the outfit that's fitted and you're out and about in public. So you're in that moment going, oh, I've got to do something about my body. I want to change this. But when you're at home comfy in the leggings and the big sweatshirt and the top knot of your hair and you're not thinking about discomfort, it's a lot harder to stick to a goal for your body because you're not feeling the discomfort of needing change. So we rely on willpower alone and that is very subjective and could change day to day based on circumstances. So willpower alone is not an ideal way to work on a goal. So sometimes when we look at why do we fail? It's because we are relying too much on willpower. You said you were going to do something. You're relying on willpower. It's not going to work that way. The next reason goals fail is we don't address underlying problems. We focus on service level behavior versus the bigger underlying problem or the root of something. For example, let's just say you're going to Say I'm going to work out every day and you're wondering why you didn't bring that to fruition. But the underlying problem might be that you don't know how to work out yet, or you don't have a gym membership or you don't have the time to get to the gym. So that would be the underlying problem. And we don't look at the underlying problem first. We are setting ourselves up for failure with goal. The next reason we fail at goals and give up is we expect perfection. We expect things to be perfect out of the gate. And that's just not the way that goals work. And I see this a lot with people setting goals around a business. For example, I'll see somebody say, I'm going to start a business and they want it to be perfect without looking at the ups and downs that it takes to grow a business. That is a surefire way to fail at a goal and not bring it to fruition. Same thing with our bodies. We say, I'm ready to get super fit. I'm going to be in the best shape of my life. And we're only leaving room for perfection. We don't celebrate those little wins along the way, which is another reason we'll fall off track and not hit a goal. Another big reason that we fail at goals is we go too big, too fast. So we set a very strong goal and we try to take big, large leaps, big action, steps forward. And if that's too much too soon, we don't leave any wiggle room for life. And then that can feel really discouraging when circumstances get in the way. And that's another reason we'll fall off of goals. The next big reason I want to bring up is lack of social support. We do, as humans, want validation towards things. So if we don't have a support system, whether that's in our spouse, in our friends, in our co workers, it makes it a lot harder to stick to a goal when we don't have that. So that's some of the reasons that goals, that goals fall apart and don't come to fruition. But I'm going to help you rewrite this today. And this is perfect timing because you're getting ready into the new year and this is a perfect time to reflect and go, okay, what is it that I really want? And let's break it down and help you with 10 ways. 10 ways. They're going to simplify this process. And I promise you, if you do it this way, you look at things this way. You will bring your goals to fruition. Okay, number one, the first thing you want to do, and I want you to write this down. If you're not driving and listening to this, or if you're not in the shower, if you're at a place, you can write this down. I want you to write the word decide. Decide. Just write the word decide. You see, deciding comes first when it comes to goals. And whenever we say something like I want to be strong or I want to lose weight, or I want to have more money or I want to have whatever, we're picking a goal, we're picking something, a carrot out there, but we haven't actually decided that we're claiming it. So a decision looks like this is the year that I'm going to get in the best shape of my life, or this is the year that my business is going to take off, or this is the year that I'm finally going to release that excess weight, or this is the year that I'm going to start. Whatever it is, a decision is a very definitive thing. It's a declaration. It is a black and white. This is what's happening. And when I look at goals and I ask people what their goal is, I very rarely hear, I've decided that this is what's happening. And if you think back on any goal that you're maybe sad you didn't hit last year or has been an over, you know, a repeating theme of something you haven't hit, I want you to ask yourself, honestly, did you actually decide, decide that it was coming to fruition? Did you declare, did you declare it as something that was going to happen? No matter what a decision means, it's happening despite the circumstances, it's happening regardless. It is a definitive this is what's happening. So deciding is the number one thing I want you to look at with your goal. When you're thinking of what is, what are my goals, I want you to think of them in terms of is this a actual decision or is this just something I'm just pulling out? Because it feels like something to write down as a goal. Deciding comes first and then tagging onto decision. Deciding is something you do all day, every day, throughout the day, many, many times. So you have lots of chances for new decisions. So you would make a decision for your big goal, a decision that this is what's happening. But then all day long you have these chances to decide that actions you're taking are moving you towards a goal or further away. So whenever someone says, I fell off, you know, Track I had made this commitment that this is what my goal was or what's wrong with me. I, I ate really bad. My answer back is, what's your new decision? Because if we can get back into the decision, we can restart that goal and be right on track at any time. So that's number one. The second thing that is lacking from most goals and I want you to get in the habit of doing is getting very clear on the destination, the vision, the place that you are going to end up. So I'm going to give you the example of fat loss and weight loss, because that is my specialty, especially with women. And when I take women through my thrive method, my thrive method, we have a very specific method. We start with decision and then we look at vision. And the reason I have you look at vision is vision is the end result that you're going to get to. The end result. You're declaring that you're deciding that you're going to hit and bring to fruition. So for example, if you are somebody who has. I'm just going to make up example, you have 50 pounds to release. You know, I want to release 50 pounds. And by the way, I call it releasing weight versus losing weight. Because when we say we're going to lose weight, it implies that we might find it again. So I say release as if it's no longer serving us, we're getting rid of it. So let's say your vision is you want to release £50. Your vision around. That is the details. What does that look like when you've achieved that? What will you be wearing when you achieve that? What will you be spending your time doing when you've achieved that? What will it actually feel like? Like literally close your eyes and think, if I am the person that's released 50 pounds, if this is me later and that's my result, how will I be spending my time? What will I be eating? What would I be doing? Who would I be around? What would I be wearing? What would that feel like to be wearing that? Really go deep and ask yourself these questions because most people more often than not see, skip that vision step. They think of the goal, they put the wish list out there, but they're not actually thinking through the full vision of what it would feel like when you arrive there. Now, why is this important to do? Well, that brings me to number three. Number three is we've got to have an identity shift. We have to create an identity shift operating from that new version of ourself, that new vision in order to Create change. Now let me explain that a little bit better. If you are unhappy in your body, you're unhappy in your body and you've been unhappy in your body. If you try to take new actions from that same identity, the person that's unhappy in their body, the person that's overweight, the person that's unhealthy, the person that is not feeling confident, if you try to take actions from that place, it's very subjective day to day to what's going on in your world. If you're feeling bad about yourself that day, you're not likely to take those great actions. You're more likely to say no to it. You're more likely to say, I'll do it tomorrow. But when you're feeling really solid in your vision, you know it's coming to fruition. You are that final version of yourself. You're about to take different actions. So when you are creating an identity shift, it means you start acting as the future version of yourself. You start acting as that person that's already achieved the goal. So let's take that same example. You have 50 pounds to release. You've made the decision that it's happening. You've gone through the process of what's the vision, what's that going to be like? When I've arrived there, I'm going to be wearing this, I'm going to feel this way, I'll be around here, I'll be eating this. You ground yourself in that personality. I am the future version of myself. This is where I am. And you think, if I'm that version of myself, what actions do I need to take today? Now, just to give you a little rewind story years ago, gosh, 17 years ago to be exact, when I'd had my daughter, I was in a very different place in my life. Not only was I going through a divorce at the time and becoming a new single mom, I had gained a lot of weight when I was pregnant. This was back in 2007, 2008, when the housing market had crashed, all things were and I was actually losing my house. I did have a full time job at the time in corporate America and I had to shift my role there because I couldn't travel full time as a new single mom. So I had all these things going on, all these circumstances going on and I remember being really caught up in the story as to why I couldn't get my life together, why I couldn't get fit, why I couldn't get healthy, why I couldn't get my bank account in order. I had all these reasons, all these very valid circumstances as to why I could not shift. Now, what had to shift for me is I had to make a decision that I was going to be a different version of myself. I had to get very clear on the vision of what it would look like once I got past all of that. And then I had to have an identity shift and say, okay, Natalie, if you are that future version of yourself, you're fit, you're strong, you're healthy, you've got it together. What actions would you take today? And every day I started taking those actions. And that's how I became the new version of myself. So number three is that identity shift. And so what I want you to do there is really think through after decision and vision. Who do I need to become? Where do I need to take actions from to make my goal a fruition? And so instead of every day going, I don't want to eat this or I don't want to move my body or I don't want to whatever it is, you would ground yourself in that vision first and say, I'm that future version of me, get yourself pumped up there and then take actions from there. So we become that future version of ourselves by acting as that future version of ourself. You're following. Okay, I know I'm talking fast here. I want to get into number four, which by the way, I'm going to be doing a surface level here today. And about the time you're listening to this, this will hopefully you're listening to this either end of December, beginning of January. In January I'll be doing a few free fat loss classes, specifically on fat loss. And you can find those at Natalie Jill Class.com Natalie Jill Class.com and I'm going to go way deeper on these topics. But today I'm giving you like a little high overview. But you want to save your spot in that free class if any of this is resonating and you want to go a lot deeper on this. Okay, so number four. So first one was decide, vision was second. Third was your identity shift, acting as if the fourth one is drop the judgment and comparison. So when you have your goal and you know what you've decided to bring to fruition, you've got to drop the judgment and comparison around this. And let me give you an example. Years ago, years ago, when I was training one on one clients, I had a client who met with me and I asked her to describe what she wanted to work on and what she Wanted for her body. And she described in great detail what she wanted for her body. And it was all very visual and physical. She's like, I want this tiny waist. I want to be like. She did this little sign, like, I want to be the curvy tiny waist.

And I want to be really cute and bubbly and have this great energy. And I imagine I'll be wearing really cute workout outfits to the gym, and I'll walk in the gym, and there I'll be fit in this cute little outfit with my tiny waist, and I'm going to feel really good. And that's how she described herself. Okay. And we got really into the vision of it. Great. So a couple days later, we were working out and training together, and in walks this woman who really looked like she had described as her vision. She was cute. She was tiny. She had the tiny waist. She had the cute workout outfit on. And a lot of heads were turning at this woman. So I'm gonna be real. She was cute. She had a great body. A lot of heads turned. Now, my client looked at me and looked at this woman and rolled her eyes and went, ugh, so fake. To me, said that to me about this woman. And I thought, that's so interesting that you just said that. She said, what do you mean? I said, well, just the other day, you described what you wanted for yourself. We talked through the vision and your decision, and in walks somebody that is representing that. And instead of you thinking, huh, there's evidence that it's possible for me, or maybe I'm going to ask that woman what she does, or maybe I should learn from her, what you did instead is you rolled your eyes and dismissed it as in.

Who wants that? So you're basically saying, I don't want that vision. Now, listen, ladies, our bodies, they listen to our thoughts. They do. So if you're wondering why you've not gotten something that you want, what has your internal dialogue been around it? What has your judgment been around it? What has the gossip been around it? Drop the comparison and judgment and get very curious. And instead of scrolling past or walking past or rolling your eyes at somebody who looks like they have what they want, I want you to get really curious. I want you to lean in and go, wow, how do I get more of that? How do I learn? How do I become more of that? So drop the comparison. Okay, next one. This is a big one. Make sure you're not missing the why factor. Now, one of my good friends, Clark Bartram, he always calls it the why. That Makes you cry.

The why is the thing that hits your heart. Now, I call this in my Thrive method, Driving Core Motivator. So driving core motivator is the real reason beneath the reason, the reason beneath the reason, the why that makes you cry, that you want something. So it's never really the surface level answer. So if you say something like, if I say, what do you want? You say, I want to be thin. And I say, why do you want to be thin? And you say, because I don't like how I feel. That's not a real reason. But if we can go a lot deeper and you could do this yourself by saying, but why, but why, but why, but why? You'll find there's something underneath that. Maybe it's a fear of being not mobile. Maybe it's a loneliness thing. You feel lonely because you're in hiding and you're not being social. Maybe it is a self worth, a self worth thing. But you have to get to the root of the reason you want something or it's very challenging to take action. So it's the why that makes you cry. Or as I say, the driving core motivator. Now this is something, if you end up in my Thrive program, which we open in at the end of January, we go really deep on Driving Core Motivator. And but a lot of you can do this yourself here just by going, why, but why, but why, but why? Go really deep on the the but why. Okay, the next thing, number six, when you have a goal, that becomes a decision. So I'm just going to make up a goal right now. Let's just say you say I, I'm going to have my goal. I've decided that my blood pressure is going to be, you know, and you pick your number. It's going to be normal. It's going to not have high blood pressure anymore. I'm just making this up as a goal. Well, you don't just then go do all the things you know. You don't. Just work out and eat well and maybe watch your excess sodium or whatever it is that you decide to do. You have to write this down. Become your own health detective. Now, you might not want to, but this is critical. This is something I include in my Thrive program because it's so important. It's never just about the diet or the workout. It's never just about that. It's about being a health detective and figuring out what is different for me. Where do I need to go deeper? What do I need to learn from my body, what do I need to explore. And I can tell you right now, if you're a midlife woman specifically, and you have the story that your diet or your workout no longer works for you and that you just need to, you know, eat stricter or work out harder, I've got news for you. It's very rarely that. It's very rarely that usually there's something else. For example, it could be hormones, it could be cortisol, it could be your thyroid, it could be your gut health. There's a lot of variables, and we have to be our own health detective and not just take the answer, oh, it's just my genetics. Oh, it's just my diagnosis. We have to learn to be our own health detective. So whatever your decision or your goal is, leave room in that goal to be your own health detective and to be able to go a lot deeper there. You have to become a detective in all of those things. Food sensitivities, your gut health hormone. You've got to look at all that. Sleep patterns, stress response, environmental factors, like all of that plays a role. So being your own health detective is a critical component when it comes to health goals and bringing those to fruition to make sure that you are successful with those. Okay, the next one. The next one. The next one is the power of a system over goals. A system. So when we talk about goals, when you just say, I want to be fit or I want to whatever that goal is, if you do not put a system in place around it, it just stays a wish. It just stays the wish. One of the things that I have people do with goals, once you know your actual measurable, deciding your decision goal, you've gotten clear on your vision, you've done the other pieces. You know, your driving car motivator, you know these different steps. We have to now break down the goal and we break it down into simple chunks that are doable. Now, don't fast forward over this part or skip this part because this is really important. You can't just make a goal that I'm going to get fit and then say, I'm going to go to the gym every day. That's not a measurable really way to win. Like, because what happens if you miss the gym? What happens if the gym is closed? What happens if you don't feel like going one day? What happens? You want to break down your goal into actual steps that need to come to fruition. Let me just, like, I'm just going to talk out one. Let's just say your goal is to release 10 pounds. I'm going to release 10 pounds. Well, there's a lot of steps that need to happen to release the 10 pounds. Like one of them, we'd have to give. Starting. Starting. Where are we starting from? We have to know that we'd maybe have to do an inventory of what we're currently eating and doing. We'd have to redesign how we're eating. We'd have to restock our fridge. We have to. You get where I'm going. There's steps on the system. There's steps on it. So the, there is a power in the system, not just having the goal and even bonus points for following a proven system. So if you want to achieve a goal, the biggest mistake you can make is to not follow a proven system. Like follow a proven system where that makes it a lot easier. So system over. Just having a goal is key. Okay, the next thing, number eight, make sure you have an accountability factor in place with your goal. Now what does that look like? There's a lot of different ways to make an accountability factor, but it's critical because when you go about a goal completely alone, you are setting yourself up for failing. And let me tell you why. Number one, we are wired to celebrate. We are. You need acknowledgement from not just yourself, but from somebody else that you're, you're doing the right thing, you're moving along. We need a little bit of validation there. So having accountability gives you validation. Having accountability also keeps you committed to your decision and out of circumstances. It's very easy to fall into circumstance and away from possibility. And when you have accountability to a group or a person, it keeps you in possibility. Now, you could do this with a formal group or you could do this with a friend, you could do this with your spouse. But it's important to add an accountability component to your goal to make sure you're bringing it to fruition. Okay, next, what do we have next? Next is the biggest one, I think, when it comes to measuring a goal, and that's your progress tracking mistake. So let me explain what that means. So many times.

Because you have a goal, I've seen this happen time and time again. You have a goal that maybe is not moving fast enough for you or isn't coming to fruition the way you thought it was, or the how is showing up a little different. We will dismiss the whole goal versus looking for the wins within it. Okay, let me say that again. Many times when we have a goal, we will dismiss the little wins because we're just, we keep saying that we haven't achieved the big win. We haven't achieved the big win yet. I remember my very first book that I wrote, Seven Day Jumpstart on Process yous Diet. When I was writing that book initially, when I was writing it, it was originally an ebook. When I wrote that book initially, I was doing it to help people. Here's my book. Here's my information. Let me help. Somewhere along the way, when I ended up working with a publisher, I got the goal in my head that I was going to be a New York Times bestselling author. Now, I did not do the whole process of deciding and vision and I didn't do all the things I just walked you through, but I had this idea I was going to be a New York Times bestselling author. And when I released the book, I'll never. The first two weeks, we sold a crazy amount of books. So many books were selling. We had a lot of reviews. I had over 400 reviews on the book. It ended up ranking high on Amazon. It ranked high on USA Today. I had all these things that were going well. And I remember sitting in my closet crying, being upset because I didn't hit New York Times. I remember being so stuck on that and so upset. And my husband came in and he up to me and he said, you, you're so upset about not hitting this, which was a subjective goal. But let me show you all these reviews you have. Look at all these women you've helped. Look at this other. When I shifted and looked at all of those wins, I no longer cared about that New York Times goal. It was the wrong goal. What I celebrated was this huge win that I was able to now reach a lot more women. So when you're looking at your goal, it's not just the big final result. It's those wins along the way. So when we're tracking progress, you want to look at the wins along the way. What were the wins? And you celebrate this every day? I know when I take a group through the Thrive method every week on the live call, we celebrate wins first. No matter what, we celebrate wins first. There's always a win. There's always a win. Always. So when you're looking at your goals, it is critical to have gratitude in the wins and focus on those versus just having this big gap. Your focus on of I'm not there yet or I haven't achieved this yet. Okay, all right. The final thing, the final, most important thing when it comes to your goal is this one's not original, but I've got to say it. It's the consistency. It's the consistency of being committed. Committed to the process and committed to the journey and committed to the vision. But it's the commitment part. So even if you've got this amazing goal and you're doing the process and you've got this and you've got a few bad days, it's not a we're done, it's over, it's going back and repeating the process and saying what's my new decision? Always can make a new decision. Let me get regrounded in my vision. What was my driving, core motivator? What are the actions I need to take day? But it's repeating that process, jumping right back on and staying consistent. And that's how you hit that goal. That's how you hit it. All right, I know this was a very high level, high level talk here, but I'm hoping that you got some good thoughts from this. Please comment below. If you're watching on YouTube, let me know if this was helpful for you. I do want to invite you if you're listening on the podcast or you're watching here on YouTube to jump in one of my free fat loss classes. I'm doing these in January. I've got a couple dates. They will fill up quick. They are free and it's the only way really you can get into my Thrive program. By the way, this is my way for you to try on the Thrive method first for free. You get to try on the coaching with me and we go way deeper on this. So we basically take what I just taught you in a very small quick overview. I'm going to go way deeper and I'm going to really cut through the noise and help you with a process to create a plan for you for 2025. So the class is free. You just have to save your spot@nataliejillclass.com and I hope to see you there.

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