How To Keep Your New Year's Resolution for 2018
- Admin
- Dec 29, 2017
- 4 min read
Every year you tell yourself, “This will be the year that I change. This will be the year that I shift things. This will be the year where I’ll make the amount of money that I want to, or the year where I lose x amount of weight, or the year I give up drinking and smoking.” You do good for the first three weeks but then you find yourself delving back into the same patterns that you did. Your mind says “Maybe one cigarette won't hurt me.” And then before you know it your back into smoking a pack a day.
How do you keep your New Year’s resolutions? How do you ward off those bad habits and change who you are?
In this article I’m going to share with you the psychology as to why we like new beginnings and the reality of it, why we break our New Year’s Resolution habits in the first place, and then finally I’ll share with you 3 strategies as to how to keep your New Year’s Resolutions.
Why are we attracted to this concept of New Years? Why are we so attracted to starting new and afresh in the first place?
We like new beginnings and we like them because a new beginning gives us the idea that anything is possible.
#1 The idea of a new beginning offers our mindless endless possibilities.
Whenever we are in the gestation period of starting something new we are excited because it’s as if our life or being can go into many different directions. However, there is a drawback. There is a big difference between an idea and reality. And when we start something new we can easily get caught up in the idea. Ideas are fun and fascinating and easy to get caught up in however we need to remember the reality of our idea. An idea is the easy starting point. Reality is hard. You may have the idea to see yourself losing twenty pounds and working out everyday. That can be exciting. But when it comes to the everyday reality of getting up before work that idea in the moment when you are waking up early in the morning won’t seem so exciting anymore. Whenever we are in the phase of starting something new our mind can go off on endless fantasies. But that is what they’re, fantasies. You have to bring your idea down into ground reality. I’ll go more into this when I speak about how to keep your Resolutions.
#2 Humans have this bias or false belief that just because something is new that it is better.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We’ve all had this experience of getting a new product only to realize that we liked the old thing better. Think about how many new I-phones and I-pads and electronics come out in a year. We tell ourselves, “Oh it’s new so it must be better.” But then we realize that the product is recalled or the old product worked better. Newer isn’t always better.
But why do we break our New Year’s Resolutions in the first place and how do we stay on track when we our tempted to go off course?
#1 We don’t hold ourselves accountable.
The New Year’s Resolution comes from the word “resolute”. Resolute means to be admirably unwavering, steady, and on course. How do you stay on course? Ask people for help. We make all these promises to ourselves saying, “I’m going to be a better husband.” Or “I’m going to workout 5 times a week.” But what if you started making these promises to other people?
Many of the times we make promises to ourselves but in the back of our head we know that we have the potential possibility to break them because we don’t trust ourselves fully. If this is the case then ask other people to put your trust into you. If you want to be a better husband then tell your wife that you're going to be a better husband and anytime you start going back to an old pattern ask her to call you out on it. If you can’t trust yourself to be resolute then ask people who you deeply love and cherish, or who are close to you to hold you accountable. This will ensure you that you stay on course anytime that your faith in your own mission starts to fade.
#2 We don’t make realistic expectations for ourselves.
If you set your goals too high and they aren’t realistic then you may find yourself bummed and unmotivated when you don’t meet all of them. Your mind can say, “Well I didn’t meet most of my goals so what is the point? I might as well just quite all of them.” However, if you make for yourself small realistic goals then you will be encouraged to continue because you will feel successful as you meet each goal. If you set the bar too high and you don't meet your goals then you can easily fall into the temptation of telling yourself, "Why should I try at all?" Keep your goals small and manageable.
#3 We aren’t patient with ourselves.
We live in an instant gratification culture. We think everything can happen overnight. In reality everything you see out in the world took time. Nothing in this world is created overnight including you. It took you nine months from the time of conception just to be birthed into the world. Everything is a process. Be patient with yourself. Maybe your starting up a business and you’re not meeting the goals that you want to meet. Realize that it will take time for you to get to the place that you want to be. Patience and persistence are the keys here. Things will take time. Focus on achieving your goals but at the same time realize it will take effort, energy, and time. Patience, persistence, and reaching out to other people for support is everything when it comes to keeping and maintaining our New Year’s Eve Resolutions. You don’t have to walk it alone. Be resolute, meet your goals, but ask for help and realize that change is a process in and of itself and it will take time to match the idea that you have in your mind to the physical reality around you.
Deepest Blessings and Pranamams!
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