Why does almost everyone have the same experience with New Year’s resolutions? We set resolutions at the start of the New Year, we make an attempt at keeping them but little by little, the New Year’s resolutions fall to the side. By spring, our new year’s resolutions are a distant memory.
A new year comes, and we set the same resolutions all over again!
The reason new year’s resolutions fail is because when we set them — when we decide to lose weight, go to the gym, save more money, get our house or apartment in great shape and fix our biggest failings — we lack an essential requirement for any ambitious undertaking.
It’s easy to say “I’m going to read a book every week in 2017″ or “I’m going to go to the gym three times a week, all year” but when real life intervenes, the missing ingredient will be our new year’s resolutions’ downfall.
The critical element that’s missing from almost everybody’s New Year’s resolutions is the answer to the question “Why?”
If we stopped to ask “Why are these new year’s resolutions important?” we would have to acknowledge that almost every New Year’s resolution comes from the same place. It comes from the place of a critical parent telling a wayward kid,
“You should keep your room clean!”
“You should get better grades in school!”
“You should help out around the house!”
New Year’s resolutions come from the place called “Should.” When we write up a list of New Year’s resolutions, it’s as though we are being scolded for our faults and told “Do better next year!”
When you compose your list of New Year’s resolutions, it’s as though somebody bigger and more powerful than you (your bossy brain, to be precise) tells you what you should do — get in shape, save money, and generally get your life together.
New Year’s resolutions are too often a rebuke — a reminder that you really need to get your act together!
The directive “you should!” doesn’t hold up very well under pressure.
We already know that we could be in better shape, save more money and be more responsible in many other ways. We know it intellectually, but it’s not that easy to get through the day even without lofty resolutions to attend to!
Eventually we run out of steam, rebel against the preachy, critical-parent voice and give up on our resolutions when we realize that it doesn’t really matter whether or not we lose ten lbs., pay off our credit cards or fix our other problems.
We will always have new problems to deal with, anyway! Our new year’s resolutions fall away — typically by the end of March.
Real life is hard. We struggle just to keep up.
What previously untapped power source will show up to power our ambitious new year’s resolutions? There is none. We are tapped out. All the mojo we have access to is already allocated to our daily obligations!
Instead of setting New Year’s resolutions this year, why not try something more connected to who you are? You can skip the resolutions this year and get altitude on your life and career, instead.