No Resolutions!

This is old news to many, but for the newly subscribed readers – I rebel against New Year’s Resolutions.

Even though it is not my own tendency to be easily discouraged, I have witnessed way too many of my friend’s lose all motivation and be impacted negatively by the whole process. It usually does like this:

1. A resolution that sounds amazing and fantastic and *should* motivate you is made. Hallmark is jealous at the inspirational nature of it.
2. January 1 rolls around. You flip over that new calendar and feel all fresh and new and absolutely determined to meet your goal. You might even take the first concrete step to make it happen (ie: call the local gym)
3. Week 1 goes pretty good. Everyone around you is also gung ho about their resolutions too so you feed off that communal motivation for a bit.
4. Week 2 begins the waning of enthusiasm. You might even get a headache or wake up feeling not quite well enough to focus on your new task. Communal enthusiasm is waning too.
5. Week 3 it all falls apart – doesn’t matter what your resolution was, it was too grand and requires too much of your own will power to keep up. Not only that, you get depressed at even the tiniest of failings.
6. Week 4 – um, what resolution?

Then suddenly it is February which everyone laments as being the Monday of Months – weather still sucks in most places and any even iota of remaining sparkle from New Years’ disappears. Depression and I mean, real, honestly draining depression sets in for many. That kicking the old year to the curb and this new year will be better feeling has vanished. Now the new year is just like the old year which totally *sucked* and blah blah blah.

Resolutions will kick your ass!

See, your problem was right there in Step 1. Look at the generic resolutions in the image – those are classics right?

How many of you have made resolutions that were a setup for failure? Either you make one really huge one or you make too many or many or all of them are entirely too vague.

Let’s try something new together this year instead.

Start smaller. A LOT smaller. Like, “every day I will wash my face” smaller. Seriously.

Normally what you are trying to do is establish a new habit, or a new way of thinking that will open up new opportunities and challenges.

Every new habit starts small. First you need to train your brain to make a new habit. Then each subsequent one – even if bigger in scope – will get easier because you can always point to the previous ones and say “hey, I did that, so I know I can do this too.”

Next up: Picking a habit