Forget New Year's Resolutions --
They Don't Work
by Vic Johnson
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You can forget about making New Year's Resolutions if you're hoping for
a successful outcome. Most aren't worth the paper they're written on.
No less than Mark Twain has written of New Year's Resolutions, "Now is
the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next
week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody
smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath.
Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we
shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our
ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever."
The biggest majority of New Year's Resolutions have gone by the wayside
before January is over and most won't even be remembered six months
later. And the reason is pretty simple: Most are made in response to
something negative -- a habit or situation that the person wants to
change or end. And therein lies the problem -- it's hard to develop
momentum from a negative response. It is always easier to move toward
something rather than away from something.
Consider one of the most adopted resolutions --- weight loss. No one can
get excited about losing weight because it requires deprivation. It's a
negative response to concerns about appearance, health, etc. The results
of weight loss Resolutions demonstrate their weakness. A 1998 survey
sponsored by Gardenburger found that more than three-fourths of all
women between the ages of 25 and 54 make diet and weight-loss plans each
year. Nearly nine of 10 respondents reported only occasional or no
success, while almost half lost little or actually gained weight
instead.
The people who succeed at losing weight and maintaining the loss have
usually been motivated by a dream much bigger and more positive than
just losing weight. They see themselves living a healthy lifestyle. They
begin to act and think like people who are in good physical shape.
There's more of a radical change in a person's thinking and actions than
you see with most resolutions. It wouldn't be possible to effect and
sustain such a radical change unless the person is motivated by a big
dream that is positive in nature.
Another popular aim is to quit smoking. And I can certainly relate to
that -- I was a three-pack-a-day smoker until I celebrated a smoke-free
New Year's twelve years ago. For over twenty years I had tried to quit
many times using every tool and technique I heard about. But as long as
I was trying to quit, I couldn't break the grip.
Instead, I developed a dream to become a non-smoker. I fell in love with
the idea of breathing clean air instead of smoky air, of my body and
clothes smelling nice instead of smoky. I thought about how wonderful it
would be to taste food again. I decided to start acting and thinking
like a non-smoker, and when the thinking took hold I simply quit
smoking. In all the years since, I've never wanted another cigarette,
never even thought about wanting one.
If you're going to make a New Year's Resolution this year, make one with
a high probability for success. Make a Resolution to develop a life
plan. Most people are in a free-fall through life, careening from one
crisis to the next. They wake up one day and 10, 20, 30 or more years
have passed and they're nowhere near where they thought or hoped they'd
be. Working with a life plan you're much more apt to be excited by what
the future brings even if you succeed at attaining only a small part of
your plan.
A life plan should address all areas of your life including finances,
health, relationships, career, spiritual and even recreational. While a
lot of our focus tends to be on financial issues like increasing income
or decreasing debt, or health issues like losing weight or quitting
smoking, the undeniable truth is that a life lived out of balance isn't
a life of quality at all.
If you were going to build a new house and you had this idea for a
fabulous master bedroom suite, you wouldn't rush out and start building
the master bedroom. You'd have a complete plan before you started. When
you approach resolutions and goals in the same manner, you end up with a
much better chance of achieving success.
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Copyright 2004-2007
Vic Johnson. All Rights Reserved. |
