Resolutions

December 28, 2015

Greetings from where we begin,

Five reasons you should not make New Year’s Resolutions:

They don’t work.

They don’t work.

They don’t work.

They don’t work.

They don’t work.

You might put these in different order, depending on your own your perspective

Wait.  What?

Most people don’t need this list written out.  They can supply their own reason not to make New Year’s resolutions.  Read anything about this process and you will find that the minority of people who actually make resolutions will give up 80% of the time.

The desire behind this is to make our lives better.  For some of us that might be dramatic change, for others it might be tweaks to our lifestyle.  But inherent in that is some level of dissatisfaction that we want to solve.  But…

What many people come back to is the list I started with.  Resolutions don’t work.  The mature question, then, is why not?  What people say, what I’ve read, what I have witnessed, including in my own life,

It’s artificial.  What is so magical about a date on a calendar for changing something in my life?

It’s too hard to stick to a resolution.  If there is any change it is temporary.

The motivation fades; it’s unsustainable.  Life gets in the way.

It is a shallow, narcissistic exercise. There are more important things to deal with.

Failing leads to failing leads to giving up.  Once you feel that disappointment, you want it behind you.

There are some others I could expand on here but I bet a few of you have nodded your head at this.  There, we figured it out; New Year’s Resolutions are a waste.  So, why bother?

Wait. What?

Look: Each of us decides what our potential is and we stack up our life against that and then choose: pain of doing nothing or pain of trying to reach for what’s possible. That little twinge when you look at the gap between where you are and where you think you could be is motivation.  Inspiration.  Drive.  The spark of enthusiasm that all of us possess when we are confronted with gifts waiting to be fully explored. 

Each of us decides what our purpose is. That answer can’t fit on these pages but let me suggest this: if our purpose is to be the best expression of ourselves, which in all likelihood will change the world for the better, then we should pay a little attention to that process.

So that’s the abstract philosophical part of it.  What comes next are choices.  And work.

The New Year is a natural place to assess how you feel about your days.  It is not the only place to bookmark and take stock, just one with the best PR.  Don’t like the pressure of the calendar?  Choose your own starting place.  You’re in charge.

Here’s what I know to be true on this subject:

·         If you want change, even big change, you should start small.  Create small habits. They are the mechanism that will give your brain the way to the outcome you want.

·         Choose one or two things to focus on.  Greater chance of succeeding.  Make a list.  Choose the key things in your life that could lead to positive things in other parts of your life.

·         Reward yourself along the way.  The surest way to maintain a new habit is to give yourself short term incentive and payoff.  Once the habit is ingrained, the reward will be less important.

·         Failure is not what you think.  Everything has some value.  Mistakes, setbacks, wrong turns are literally how we learn what is best for us. 

·         Get people to support you.  This will be a very personal preference, but for most people it helps to have someone in your corner with a towel.

·         Choosing a new habit is easier than trying to break an old one.  Choose the new habit that will cascade into your life and drown out the habit you want left behind.

There are many ways to approach a satisfying life.  But in there will be a series of choices, including what direction you take and what habits you build under that direction, and who you choose to spend time with, and what you choose to influence you, and so on.  Once in a while we should look at those choices and see if they are contributing the way we hoped.  Maybe at the end of a year, maybe at the end of a sentence.

There is little harm in deciding where you want to go.  If there is unrealized potential, if there are things you’d rather improve than let decay, if there is not enough fun, or enough growth, or enough love, then choose what you are going to build, one small habit at a time, to make it better.

You are worth the effort.

You are worth the effort.

You are worth the effort.

You are worth the effort.

You are worth the effort.

Hope this finds you choosing,

David