The New Year's Resolution Solution

Every year it’s the same old thing.  It’s been going on for generations.  New Year’s Day starts getting closer and everyone gets a shot of confidence that this year is going to be the year.  They’re going to make some big changes in their lives.  They are going to lose weight, save money, build better relationships, get ahead in life and the list goes on.  We all know them and many of us have been that person.  They start out with a bang and three or four weeks later they end with not so much as a whimper.  They just fall back into their usual comfortable routine.

Don’t get me wrong, I respect people for taking a shot to better their lives, but if you are going to wait for a certain day chances are you aren’t too serious about its undertaking.  Big significant changes require a lot of things.  Commitment, consistency, and resiliency (maybe the biggest factor and I’ll get to that in a bit) are chief among them.  But using an arbitrary day like New Year’s as an artificial tipping point is a recipe for disaster.  If you want to do something, do it.  Do it now.  Not tomorrow.  Not in 2012.  Now.   

And don’t give yourself the option of failure.  There has to be consequences for quitting.  If you only tell yourself that you are going to lose 20 pounds and don’t what was lost personally?  Nothing.  You failed your goal but only in your eyes.  And human beings are pretty good at self-delusion so chances are there will be a multitude of reasons why it was impossible for you to succeed.   If you’re going to do something tell people you are going to do it and make them hold you accountable.  Don’t let them let you by on bullshit excuses. 

If you say you want to do something and don’t do it, you really never wanted to do it.

If you’re reading this article the day it’s published and you have a New Year’s resolution why wait?  The world is out there.  And it sure as hell isn’t going to wait for you.  Nor does it care about what day it is.  If you want something, take it.  Don’t wait for it to be given to you because it’s not going to happen. 

Abraham Lincoln said, “Good things come to those who wait, but only the things that are left behind by the people who hustle.”

The scroll says, "Seize the day bitches!" source: sharpwriter

You can sit there for four more days and hope that the pounds fall off, or that money magically lands in your bank account.  Or you can go out and hustle and make those things happen.  Write out your goals and do something every day to realize those goals.  And if you have a bump in the road the last thing you should do is fall off and give up.

Resiliency I feel is becoming more and more scarce these days.  I could, and more than likely will, write an article on this one factor but I just want to get this out there: 

SHIT HAPPENS. 

And it happens to those with the best of intentions.  Business ideas don’t pan out, you have a moment of weakness and binge eat, your car breaks down and have to use your savings to get a car to get to work.  That stuff happens.  But it’s those that have the most resiliency to know that having problems in the short term doesn’t mean all is lost in the long term.

This is where a lot of people fail.  They experience a setback and they can’t throw in the towel fast enough.  Setbacks happen and they happen a lot.  But there are two types of people when it comes to setbacks: those that pack it in and quit, and those that learn from the setback and are better for it.  In the words of the wise sage Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan until they get hit.”  But getting hit should only be an invitation and motivation to keep moving forward.  You get hit but you learn how to avoid it and other hits like it in the future.

What's your plan for when you get hit?

To summarize.

1. Pick Your Goal- Pick your goal and look at it every day.  Make it specific as possible.  Losing weight is not specific.  Being at 10% body fat by August 1^st is specific.  Let it sink into you until your pursuit of it becomes a part of everything you do and a little bit of who you are.

2. Start Now- Don’t wait for a random day.  Don’t even wait for tomorrow. Do something right now that will carry you towards your success.  Even if all you do is define what your own success looks like.

3. Be Held Accountable- Don’t let yourself fall into the same old rutted routine.  Make there be consequences for failure.  Could something like if you don’t do what you wanted to do you have to donate money to a charity.  But there has to be a punishment for quitting.

4. Be Resilient- You are going to slip up.  That’s a given.  You are going to make mistakes.  No one is perfect.  You are going to find that your journey is hard, and maybe the hardest thing you’ve ever done.  If it was easy everyone would do it.  Concede the small battle but keep winning the war.

There’s your mission.  You only have so many hours left to shuffle around in this mortal coil.  Don’t waste a single one.