Farhin Ahmed Mim
1. Rushing It: Even though a New Year vibe gives you new inspiration and encouragement and of course the overrated “New Year New Me” is present, we feel like we can win the whole world in one day. Beside the fact that it is the first day of a new year, it is also just another day and even if your spirits are sky-high, you cannot expect to be a whole different person with a completely different perspective in one day.
2. Overdoing It: All the new-year-vibe makes us overdo things- be it working out at the gym, or studying ‘regularly’, or eating healthy. For instance, we work out for extra hours thinking that we are doing it in advance so that we can earn extra points for ourselves. This hampers the regularity because the next day you might work out for 1 hour instead of 2 because you did an extra hour yesterday and this will reduce in the following days till you stop going in 2 weeks or so. Hence, take it easy. Do it one day at a time.
3. Over-expectation: Linked to the point mentioned above, since you work extra hours, you expect faster results which you do not get because (1) A habit can be built with the span of 21 days and (2) Results will come after you have formed the habit successfully.
4. Giving Up Easily: When you fail because you expect fast results, you give up. For instance, if you miss one day of the new habit you are trying to grow, you get demoralized and think missing one day ends everything as your motivation goes from a 110% to 0%. Instead, have patience and it is okay to miss a day or two. The key is to keep going with patience.