Working with troubled teens , I have found myself with a new perspective on the whole New Year’s resolution racket. It isn’t about these sweeping, end of year promises to do incredible things. It is about setting small goals, and sticking to them through the year. How do I know? Because the troubled teens I work with do this at different points all year long, and they are more successful than any of the resolutions I have made. They are learning long term habits for life, not merely ticking tasks off a master list.
What is the difference between a resolution, and a habit? For starters, a resolution is a promise that you make to yourself, a commitment to complete a goal, usually a big one. People will make resolutions to stop smoking, to lose weight, to get out of credit card debt. Which is great, but ultimately most attempts fail because it is taking on so much, with such a strict deadline.
A lifelong habit is one that is developed over time. It instills positive values that enrich your life, in either small or big ways. Going back to the teens I have worked with, they will make small changes to their daily lives and commit to sticking to them. This might be exercising for 20 minutes every day. Or finishing their homework before they go out in the evenings. Maybe it is even something as simple as limited time looking at screens.
These are small habits that can be perfected over time, which become a part of their daily rituals. Learning how to develop these habits are a crucial life skill far more valuable than meeting resolutions. It is also a way to be more happy .
One of my favorite examples of a lifelong habit formed by a teen happened in my own family. My son’s grades were slipping as he went through a stressful period of working on an extracurricular activity that was very important to him. Rather than make him drop this hobby, or berate him for his academic performance, my wife and I asked him to make one change. He was to dedicate 60 minutes a day, broken up or all at once, to studying.
Guess what? Immediate improvement to his grades, without losing out on his hobby time. It turns out that he had been rushing through his schoolwork, and wasn’t being as careful as he should have been. Making that block of time a habit had the added benefit of slowing him down.
You have probably heard of the book The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People . What you might not know is that the author’s son, Sean Covey, wrote a version specifically targeted towards teens . He posits that instilling these habits earlier lead to greater results. He suggests the following habits:
As the content writer and outreach coordinator for HelpYourTeenNow, Tyler Jacobson joined the team after years of parenting a son with Reactive Attachment Disorder. He lends his experiences and education to other parents looking for ways to help their teens that struggle in school, social, and family circles. Topics that Tyler commonly writes on are parenting, troubled teens, education problems, behavioral disorders, and addictions. Follow Tyler on: Twitter | LinkedIn