— by Kimberly Nelson, MS, LMFT
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist #45871
Every January is the opportunity for a fresh start and new beginning to hit refresh and motivate. One of my favorite things to do in early January is put together my goals for the year. I’ve been doing this for many years and love to see the progress over the year. Certain goals I wrote down for myself would show up but not get accomplished. Has that ever happened to you? For example, I had a goal of getting back into sewing. I sewed as a child but was by no means an expert. I liked the idea of whipping up some curtains or a decorative pillow like all DIY experts do with ease. Year after year I would write the goal on my list and never accomplish it. My goal fell victim to the Dip.
The dip is the phenomenon that occurs when you have a big goal (lets say run a marathon in 2016) that gets overwhelming early on so you just give up. So even though the gym is packed the first 3 weeks of January by Feb 15th half of those motivated atheletes have given up their workout and decided to stay home, hibernate and be a couch potato. The reason we tend to lose steam on our goals is they are so big they become overwhelming. So even though the goal may be a marathon to have success it is important to have sub goal to work towards the bigger goal and avoid letting the dip derail your plans. So for the runner it might mean run 1 mile within the first month of creating the goal. When you meet the sub goal reward yourself. Do something kind for yourself and celebrate your accomplishment with an accountability partner. Then keep working on your goal. So as we get into 2016 I’m excited to work on my goals this year. I may never be a seamstress (just an HGTV fan) but I do have a marathon under my belt and even met my husband’s goal to beat his marathon time!