There’s
a standing joke: that New Year’s resolutions are only
good for New Year’s Day, and then they’re promptly
forgotten. Like the firecrackers and the New Year’s
Eve feast, they become part of one’s memories as the
year moves on.
For others more intent on keeping their resolutions, they
struggle with them the first few weeks or even months, but
eventually give up and consign them to the memory bin, too,
to be resurrected again come next New Year’s resolution-making
time.
What are New Year’s resolutions for? And what makes
them hard to keep?
Ideally, New Year’s resolutions are a set of decisions
one makes about what one wants to do with one’s life,
to give it direction and to enrich and improve it over the
course of a year.
They become hard to keep because of any or all of the following
things:
1. You did not really mean them. You made
them in the spirit of the season, but in your heart, you don’t
really have the commitment to follow through on them.
2. They are not really yours. They are
“resolutions” you think that would sound nice,
or what you think others would want you to make about yourself.
You have not searched your own self long and deep enough to
know what it is you really want for yourself and for your
life to manifest in the coming year.
3. They are too generic. You know, those
mass-produced sounding resolutions like, “to be a better,
nicer person this year”, “to diet”, “to
look better”, etc. Many of us are familiar with the
SMART test for goals to have better chances of being reached:
goals must be specific (instead of just being nicer, why not
try “to count to ten and breathe deeply before lashing
out in anger”), measurable (if counting to ten is not
enough, try counting to twenty…), achievable and realistic
(given time, resource and energy constraints), and timebounded
(deadlines must be set as benchmarks).
4. They are too many; the list is too long.
When your resolutions are too many and too spread out in too
many areas, you become overwhelmed, feeling like you have
to overhaul your entire life in a year’s time, as if
it’s now or never. So you never even get to start at
all. Then, too, when there are too many resolutions, you get
to feel like a total failure, having so many things about
your life to improve in just one year. Not an encouraging
thought, that.
5. You are bogged down by the chains and ghosts of
the past. It usually happens that, despite your best
intentions and resolve, and making sure the first four reasons
above are not a problem, you still struggle unsuccessfully
with following through on resolutions. It is because, perhaps,
you are still tied down to certain weights from the past.
Steven Scott, in his book, Simple Steps to Impossible Dreams:
The Fifteen Power Secrets of the World’s Most Successful
People (Fireside: New York, 1999), identifies six (6) of these
“chains”:
1. You were programmed for mediocrity.
Parents, family, friends, school, society all said you are
nice enough, but will always just be average in everything.
(How dare you become more than us?) If you really believe
that, then you’re in big trouble.
Start by finding what you’re good at, what interests
you, what excites you. These are clues to your passion, the
passion that could take you beyond your individual self and
lead you to the meaning of your life.
2. Your fear of failure. Or rejection.
Think over the many “failures” and “rejections”
you have had in your life. Well? Did you die from them? Did
they destroy you? You’re still here, aren’t you?
It’s a good bet you probably learned more from them
than from the apparent “successes” and good times
of your life, didn’t you? So, what’s to fear now?
And you know what, as it happens often enough, if you keep
asking persistently enough and in so many ways, you get it.
The world makes way for the man or woman who knows where he
or she is going, it has been said. There’s a bonus,
too—you get immune to that rejected-feeling impact that
the word “NO” usually brings to most people.
3. Your avoidance of criticism. Many of
us smart from criticism, and not too many of us realize that
not all criticism is valid. Consider the source, and consider
the accuracy of the statement. Is the source qualified to
make the criticism? Is the statement accurate to the circumstances
surrounding it, or is it just an emotionally-based statement
by the critic to let out his or her own pent-up frustrations
and/or reactions to past experiences/failures?
4. Your lack of clear and precise vision.
If you don’t have a bigger and longer-lasting vision
sustaining you and by which your goals fit in, all the things
you do will be nothing but “busy-ness” and won’t
have much meaning. What have you got to say about your self
and your life? Who are You, whatever happens? That is the
meaning you give your life, in the small day-to-day things
that you think, do and say, as well as in the bigger tests
of your character, faith and vision for your life.
5. Your lack of know-how. Sometimes, you
can’t do a thing successfully because you don’t
know enough. So, you can do two things: learn for your self,
acquire the skill needed; and/or, ask somebody who does know
to help you.
6. Your lack of resources. Most times, you
can’t achieve your goals because you don’t have
enough material resources to attain them. The solution? Network.
Find people who have the resources you want. Find out what
they need and try helping them in attaining what they need,
in return for what you want.
At a time in my life where I barely had enough to put food
on my family’s table, I was able to get things accomplished
mainly through a variety of creative solutions: exchange deals
(my writing services for your money, or I link you up to somebody
I know whom you want to meet, and you refer me to somebody
you know who can help me), borrowing, renting, and even outright
asking for it (yes, asking!).
So, don’t let New Year’s resolutions daunt you.
Take stock of your life, determine what you want for it (and
what you don’t want). Brainstorm how you’re going
to have more of what you want, and less of what you don’t
want. Then, as my favorite footwear ad says, JUST DO IT.
