What's up with the New Year's resolutions? Or any kind of resolutions? Why do they so often fail?
One of my friends recently made a resolution to lose weight. Part of his plan was to text me his weight every Monday, every week. He set a date for himself to start. That date has passed 4 weeks ago and he hasn't started yet.
What is the problem with keeping resolutions? And why do we need to make such an official promise like a resolution tied to a specific date?
The New Year's resolutions are just a variation of general resolutions. Technically they are not different to those that start on a Monday, or on a 1st of the Months or on the 1st of the year. All those resolutions are bound to a specific date to start. They are all scheduled.
And the scheduling is a sign that most of them will fail.
Scheduling makes a promise official. It makes it ritualized.
Making it so official and big is similar to a marriage proposal from a desperate guy who doesn't even have a chance to date that particular girl. Inside, he knows that his proposal will not work. But to give his proposal more weight he makes it more official, ritualized, and includes presence of public like going on a TV-show and proposes there. He thinks that making it "bigger and louder" should make the chance for success stronger.
A resolution is very similar. If you need to ritualize or schedule, it is a sign of a desperate measure. Sharing your plans with others to make them more official and helping to feel accountable is the same. Ritualizing, scheduling, and publicizing are outside measures which are recruited when the inner readiness is absent.
Any resolution is just a promise. A promise to change something. Mostly those are behavioral changes. You want to change your actions.
Have you noticed that it is never a promise to change your thinking?
No one says: "Starting Monday I will start thinking that it is better to keep the house clean" or "Next year I will start thinking that it is better for me to exercise". Thinking happens unscheduled. Why is doing so different?
Actually doing is not different. Your thoughts come when they are ready to come. In the same way, you start doing something only when you are really ready to do it.
Yes you can involve your will, push hard and make yourself do something. But it is very tiring and doesn't work for long. And it is usually a torture.
Remember the saying about a horse: "You can take the horse to water but can't make it drink"? The horse has to be ready to drink, it has to be thirsty enough. Your planning can take you to water, but you have to be thirsty enough to drink.
If you are not ready and you force yourself, you might "drink when you are not thirsty" and it will give you no pleasure.
You will feel a drag, your subconsciousness will signal that you are doing something unnecessary. Both, body and brain don't like to waist energy on anything that is unnecessary. The motivation will be low. Procrastination, laziness and excuses will come. All that because you were not ready.
But you will blame your weak will or laziness and lack of motivation.
When you start something you are ready for - you don't even think about motivation. You just start. Just like thinking.
So if anything is guaranteed to fail if the person is not ready, why are so many trying?
Maybe they don't know that they have to be ready.
Or maybe because of so much social noise they can't hear themselves. The social noise (friends, family, news, social media) constantly tells you how things are supposed to be and you are trying to comply.
But do YOU really have to? Or do you have to do it NOW? Maybe you will be ready later.
An alcoholic knows the public opinion about his drinking but he will only stop when he is ready and not because someone tells him that he has to do it.
How to start learning to recognize if you are ready?
1. Abstract yourself from others. When you feel that you have to do something, ask yourself: "Who says so?"
For example if you feel that you have to keep in contact with a friend you don't like, ask: "Who says so? Why do I have to? Is it my duty or my chore to spent time on someone I don't like? Do I owe it to someone? Will my life be better without this chore?"
2. Practice to recognize your own true wants quicker.
True "wants", not "have to".
Years ago I was very pushy and aggressive toward my goals. I was setting goals and was working hard on them. But I noticed that I didn't enjoy the process. I was annoyed by any necessary adjustment, change or delay. That was no fun. Just hard work. Sometimes, after reaching a goal the hard way, I realized that I didn't really need it. After noticing it a few times I stopped pushing.
I changed to: If I want it, I do it as soon I can. If something comes in between, I just let it. I went with the flow more and more.
Instead trying to formulate goals and squeeze them into rigid frames, why not to just step back a bit?
Ask yourself what do you really want?
Notice, I am not asking what you want to change? I am asking: what you want to do?
You can practice to recognize your true wants and to act shortly after. Once you learn to do what you really want, you will stop waisting your energy on things you don't want or don't need. This way will also help to eliminate things you are doing because others want you to do them.
Of course the rules will be different at your work place. That is a special situation where you have to adjust to certain rules.
Start with your private life, and maybe at some point you will be ready to change things at your job too.
Start small but try to do it often. At some point in your day stop and ask yourself: what do I what to do right now? For example you are checking your phone. Put it down for a second, look around your room and ask yourself: What do I really want to do right now?" You might want to sort things on your shelf, or take a nap, or read a book.
If you decide that you want to read a book, ask yourself: "What book?" It shouldn't be a book you still have to finish, or one someone said everyone has to read. It should be the one you want. Just your own interest is reason enough.
Start with these small things.
That way you will sensitize yourself to recognize quickly what you want.
When you identify what you want to do, act quickly and do it. Otherwise the effect will be lost.
You will notice the difference in feeling - how it feels when you are doing something you really want.
Don't do it like this:
"I want to go to France, again..."
"Have you been there before?"
"No, but I already wanted before."
The real changes don't happen according to a schedule.
It happens happens when you are ready for it. Ready in your mind, thirsty enough for it. If you start a change when you are ready, it will be a lasting one and the one you will enjoy.
My rules for resolutions:
Don't make any resolutions.
Recognize what you WANT. Then DO what you WANT.
Don't schedule your joy.
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