New Year, New You?

Resolutions made smarter, not harder

Happy new year and welcome back to the Active Edge!

With January often comes questions about new year’s resolutions, or you may notice an increase in emails/advertisements from your local gyms offering to help you create a ‘new you’. I’m not here to tell you that’s wrong. Rather, to think about how theories of behaviour change can help you to change when it suits you. For some of you, that time might be now.

First though, why do we want or need to change? Is it something we want to do for us? For the benefit of our health? Or are we changing because of society, because we always hear about new year’s resolutions, and the phrase ‘new year, new me’, and we are conditioned to think we need to change every time new year comes around Understanding our ‘why’ for change can also help us to understand when we are ready to make our desired changes.

As I mentioned, theories of behaviour change can help us to understand when we are ready to change. One model I will talk about is the COM-B model of behaviour change. It outlines three key factors that can influence behaviour change:

1. Capability

2. Opportunity

3. Motivation

(The B stands for behaviour – the outcome of our changes!)

Capability – Do we have the knowledge, skills, and physical ability to change? Our own perceived competence can influence capability, too. Perhaps you know your desired outcome, but you’re not sure how to achieve it? Do you want to increase strength in the gym? Increase physical activity/training levels without becoming injured? By increasing your knowledge or physical ability, you can increase your capability to change. So, how might you do this? Going to the gym with a friend or attending a class to see how things work can be helpful. Sports massage and sports rehabilitation therapists (cue Yasmin and Shane) can support in injury prevention, and a sport and exercise psychologist (me!) can help with the creation, implementation, and maintenance of habits.

Opportunity – think about what will make your desired behaviour possible. Generally, opportunity refers to external factors, so this could by an offer on gym membership, knowing a gym-going friend you could join in with, or perhaps being able to afford a trainer or coach.

Motivation – why change, and why now? If opportunity links to external factors, motivation links to internal factors such as our impulses, and the reflection that happens when we make decisions and plans. If our motivations are intrinsic (wanting to change for you and your own personal reasons), we may find we are more motivated to change than if our motivations are extrinsic (wanting to change for reward, i.e. wanting to lose weight to get more compliments).

So, each of these factors alone can support behaviour change, but change is most likely to occur when the three factors outlined above (capability, opportunity, motivation) are considered and implemented.

Why not try anyway? Well, this might depend on you as an individual. If you lose confidence if something doesn’t go well, then trying to change without the motivation, opportunity, and/or capability may only act as another knock to the confidence. Think about setting yourself up for success from the start. So back to my first point, why January may or may not be the right time for you to change.

Consider, do you feel capable, is the opportunity there, and do you want to make these changes? If you would answer no to at least one of these, think about whether now is the best time to change, and what you could do to set yourself up for the best chance of success when you do decide to change.

If this raises questions, or you would like further support in implementing new years resolutions (or changes at any time of year!), feel free to book a session here, or drop me an email: nicole@activeedgesportstherapy.co.uk.

Thanks for reading!

Nicole