Why You Should Never Make New Year’s Resolutions
Uh oh. It’s back. That all too familiar sinking feeling has just come over you.
There you were, minding your own business, strolling through some crunchy leaves with your pumpkin spice latte enjoying the shit out of this sweater weather, when a mood-altering, fun-sucking, dark-thought cloud yanked all the autumnal-joy out of your perfect autumn day.
Another year is almost over.
Another year is gone .
Another YEAR –– and aside from getting older…not much else has changed.
Didn’t you make some promises to yourself last year? Promises to make some significant changes…
…and you didn’t change, did you?
You feel guilty.
Maybe even a little shame?
I guess it’s time to dust off and refresh your list of New Year’s Resolutions, right?
WRONG.
Making New Year’s Resolutions is the exact wrong way to sweep this dark cloud away.
In fact, if you want to (actually) rid yourself of this joy-robbing feeling forever, there’s something else you should be doing instead.
Studies have shown that roughly 45% of Americans make New Year’s Resolutions. And for those that do make resolutions, 88% fail to follow through on them.
EIGHTY-EIGHT PERCENT! That’s staggeringly bad and not at all motivating.
Statistically speaking, that ‘new you’ that you think you’re unveiling to the world turns tail and runs before you even make it to Valentine’s Day.
And so what do you do then?
That’s right…you wait another 320 days before revisiting the idea of making improvements to your life.
So why is it that so damn many of us participate in this epic pattern of failure?
By using the term resolution, we’re already lying to ourselves. The language we use when we talk to ourselves unconsciously directs us.
Having thrown the term “resolution” around so long, it’s lost its weight.
It has very little significance anymore.
So when we say we made a “resolution”, we’re not being serious.
Another problem is a general one…literally.
When we make our list it looks something like this:
These read as loose suggestions to yourself. They don’t read as ‘musts’, they read as ‘shoulds’.
They read as “I should lose some weight”, not “I resolve to lose 25 pounds by summer even if it means I have to cut it off myself.”
You’re basically saying, “Well you know, I may try to lose some weight if it’s convenient and easy and doesn’t get in the way of my Cheetos and Coca-Cola date I set with my couch every night at 9pm” Because that’s exactly what you’re telling yourself.
Need more proof?
Let’s take a brief look at the 2 most popular new year’s resolutions:
Um… didn’t you just spend the last 60 days shoving massive amounts of stuffing, mashed potatoes, and candied yams down your pumpkin pie-hole?
And didn’t you (also) just somehow blow hundreds of dollars on Black Friday deals, and Cyber Monday deals and Small Business Tuesday deals, and I Too Have a Calico Cat Named Mr. Meowington deals…?
You spent the last 2 months living in direct defiance of these goals… yet you still believe that January 1st is a magical date that will somehow grant you resolution success.
When we truly ‘resolve’ to do something, there is a definitive resoluteness to it — meaning there is no room for wavering. There is a C O M M I T M E N T.
So when we make a list of New Year’s resolutions as part of a global dance with the rest of humanity once a year, we are in effect saying to ourselves, “it’s okay to fail because 88% of the 45% of us making these so-called resolutions will fail…so I won’t be the only one.”
So if you truly Truly TRULY want to change this year, here are two ways to skip the grasp of statistical failure…
Simple as that… Don’t Wait!
If a “resolution” means we resolve to change an undesired trait or behavior in our lives, why the hell would you want to wait?
Waiting until January 1st to enact important change in your life isn’t going to help!
Stop cheating yourself out of making progress in your life by delaying your start.
Start NOW while your internal fire is burning. Use the guilt and shame you feel as motivation to kickstart your winning streak.
Prove to yourself you’re serious about making positive changes by starting this moment. Don’t wait for more time to pass.
Maybe “resolution” as a term needs to get tossed in the bin for a while. Swap it for GOAL instead.
Make GOALS. Better yet, make them S.M.A.R.T. Goals (Specific. Measurable. Attainable. Relevant. Time-Based).
Stop telling yourself (and others) that you should do something. “Should” is one giant foot out the revolving door of failure.
Prove to yourself that you have RESOLVE.
Don’t waver. Make it a MUST!
The desire to improve is an admirable one. But asking yourself to commit to improvements only once a year is a recipe for failure.
If you were to simply take all that motivation and excitement (and guilt) you have to make a list of New Year’s Resolutions — and instead took action on ANY of them right now, well then you’d stand a much better chance of following through on those promises to yourself.
If you changed all your ‘shoulds’ into ‘musts’ then you wouldn’t want to wait until January 1st to get rolling.
If you changed all your ‘shoulds’ into ‘musts’ you’d be like a resolution snowball; with your goal crushing girth growing exponentially as you rolled through life crushing all goals in sight until you reached Stay-puft status.
Don’t you want to make some REAL improvements and sweep those guilt-filled shame clouds away for good?
Don’t you want to give yourself the freedom to enjoy all the pumpkin spice lattes you want come next Fall?
Don’t you want to look back at the end of the year and be PROUD of the ‘New You’ you created over the last 12 months instead of embarrassed that you’re no different than before (or worse!)?
If you really do want to get back to enjoying the crisp autumn air without the year-end guilt, then do yourself a favor and NEVER make another New Year’s Resolution ever again.
Why You Should Never Make New Year’s Resolutions
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