New Year's Resolutions and the 80/20 Rule: Setting Yourself Up For Success

Happy 2020! In my last Instagram post, I mentioned that I will be doing deep dives into some of the popular New Year’s diets that people have been asking me about. Before diving in, I want to zoom out a little and talk about New Year’s resolutions in general. This is important.

The New Year is always a time when people love to start new health kicks and diets. Over half of the population sets a health-related New Year's resolution (source), yet 92% of resolutions will fail (source.)

When it comes to succeeding with long-term health-related resolutions, the key is to make them sustainable. Too often we look for a quick fix, overnight results, or a way to cheat the system. If you put in short-term effort, however intense it may be, you will get short-term results. While these shorter-term, intense health sprints can sometimes help jump-start initial progress, it's important to fit these sprints into a larger, longer-term health resolution. One that is sustainable. Otherwise, once the sprint is over, you will likely revert to your old way of living and/or eating. Welcome to the 92%.

So how do you join the 8% club?

I advise people to abide by the 80/20 rule - if you practice healthy habits 80% of the time, it's okay to spend the other 20% eating cake and not waking up for your 6AM yoga class. Rigidity and deprivation will either lead to resolution failure or, what I like to call, "life in a bubble." It's important to live in the world - don't let strict "rules" deprive you from experiences and spontaneity. Before I adopted the 80/20 mindset, there were so many times I turned down opportunities to meet up with friends, experience new things, and go on adventures because they didn't fit into my health plan. This is not to say I don't decline invitations from time-to-time due to a scheduled workout class or a healthy meal I had planned for the evening (because I still firmly believe in making choices to take care of yourself) but I've learned to strike an 80/20 balance.

The importance of this mindset shift is best explained by one of my favorite quotes by John C. Maxwell:

"Disappointment is the gap that exists between expectation and reality."

If you adopt the 80/20 mindset, after a few cookies or a missed workout, you no longer feel as though you've failed or "fallen off the bandwagon" because the 20% is built into your expectations. It's almost part of your plan. So rather than kicking yourself and feeling as though you have to start at day one again, you can reflect on the fun experiences you had with friends while making yourself a kale smoothie in the morning to balance things out. This creates sustainability and also protects you from adopting disordered eating habits that plague our population today more than ever.

So, as I feature different dietary theories over the next few posts, please keep all of this in mind. :)