Given we’re all about doing things differently we thought we’d tackle the New Year’s Resolutions thing in December. We could have skipped the unsavoury ‘R’ word all together but where’s the fun in that?

You might have a tick list of things you’ve resolved to change in the past and psychological research shows it takes on average five attempts at a resolution before it’s achieved. So that means this year’s ripe for attaining the resolution you’ve been recycling since 2001! This time around how about pushing resolutions to one side until February or March and using the time in between to prepare to succeed? Or maybe doing away with resolutions altogether?

International Buy Nothing Day happened last month (www.buynothingday.co.uk) and it got us thinking about celebrating Christmas without purchased presents. How about these as a starter for ten…

1. Pledging babysitting duties.
2. Teaching someone a skill.
3. Baking Christmas goodies.
4. Donating painting and decorating time.
5. Promising to give up a bad habit.
6. Painting their portrait.
7. Writing new lyrics to a favourite song.
8. Creating a scrapbook of memories.
9. Passing on some of your favourite things.
10. Becoming a slave for a day.

A research team lead by the psychologist James Prochaska has spent many years looking at how people change and found that the people who succeed with the most ease go through a preparation stage before diving into action. So you’re most likely to succeed if you use your noggin to think things through first – what will you need to change? What impact will this have on your life? How will you handle setbacks? What will make the change easier? Another chap, Peter Gollwitzer, has done a ton of research into how people succeed at their goals and found that ‘implementation intentions’ are a key to success. Simply put it’s about us specifying the when, where and in what way we’re going to implement our goals. Then when we come across these criteria we’re triggered into doing the things that’ll help us reach them. So say you’re really set on doubling the amount of exercise you do next year, these might be some of your implementation intentions:

1. Always walk to work on dry days.
2. See stairs, use them!(instead lift/escalators)
3. Make excerise a priority on Wednesdays.
4. If wake early, go to the gym.

At the last ‘Ben & Karen Online’ the conversation came round to keeping going with the programme. Graham, who’s been doing it since May, offered us some golden nuggets:

• Trust the program; it works.
• Don't worry too much about the timescales and the exact detail. It's not a ritual or spell or, heaven help us, a recipe. It's the doing something different as a principle that counts most.
• It gets to be more enjoyable and becomes a way of life as you go on. It seems a bit strange to do it at first, a bit forced and awkward. Later it feels odd if you don't DSD.
• Don't get obsessed with the actual weight loss each week. People don't speak about the actual weight loss much on the forums, and we have probably all started on this road with the wish to lose weight. The weight loss does come - in my experience it varies week by week and does not directly relate to what you are doing at the time.
• Keep joining in the forum. It's a good motivator and you get great ideas both directly and as part of the stimulation of conversation among friends.

But if you decide to steam ahead on January 1st and it doesn’t work out you can always rationalise it away as the characters suggest in the film The Big Chill:

“Don’t knock rationalisation. Where would be without it? I don’t know anyone who’d get through the day without two or three juicy rationalisations. It’s more important than sex.” “Oh, come on. Nothing is more important than sex.” “Oh yeah? Have you ever gone a week without rationalisation?”

We’re joking of course! Forget kidding yourself with rationalisations. If you want to do it, take responsibility for making the change happen and get on with it!