Each new year many of us attempt to commit to a New Years Resolution – usually giving up something we like. This more often than not results in failure to achieve your goal – or more accurately, failure to achieve the punishing regime that you’ve set yourself.
If you remove a cup of water from the ocean, the rest of the ocean immediately rearranges itself to fill that space. A cup-shaped hole is never left behind. Your life goals should work in exactly the same way.
Why do New Years Resolutions rarely work?
New Years Resolutions are simply not compelling enough to make you want to stick to them. Ask someone what their New Years Resolutoin is and you’ll more often than not hear one of the following:
- I’m going to stop smoking
- I’m going to give up alcohol
- I’m going to stop going shopping as much
- I’m going to stop eating fatty food
I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting the important words in each of the statements above. These are important because all of them – whilst describing the action you’re going to take – are inducing of negative actions. Of course they are all meant with positive intentions, but the mere thought of preventing yourself from doing something that you take pleasure in can often be enough to breed resentment and negativity towards your goal.
If you’re constantly telling yourself “I’m going to stop doing this thing that I like”, you’ll often face inner resistance no matter how much you believe in what you’re trying to achieve.
How can you create a more compelling New Years Resolution?
If you’re going to have a New Years Resolution, immediately stop thinking about what you’re going to stop doing, and begin thinking, talking, and acting like what you actually do want to do. For example, here’s a more compelling and desirable way of rewriting the previous resolutions:
- I’m going to stop smoking become a healthy non-smoker
- I’m going to give up alcohol drink more water and fruit juices and look after my body
- I’m going to stop going shopping save money to improve my standard of life for the future
- I’m going to stop eating fatty food eat more healthy foods and cut down on the things that are bad for my health
As you can see, the above goals are now more constructive and working towards an achievement rather than focussing on changing something. You’re now working towards a replacement for the original thing which gave you pleasure.
For everything in your life that you want to remove, you must replace it with something else, and the best way to achieve your resolutions is to replace that thing with something that drives and motivates you more.
If you remove a cup of water from the ocean, the rest of the ocean immediately rearranges itself to fill that space. A cup-shaped hole is never left behind. Your life goals should work in exactly the same way.
How can I improve my chances / How can I set my goals?
We released an article about goal setting, which we would recommend you to follow rather than setting a simple New Years Resolution. Goal setting can help to transform your entire life in a miriad of ways, ranging from your physical condition to your career goals and relationship goals. The goal setting exercise allows you to really get creative and work out what you want more than anything else, and then whittle down your desires into manageable action-driven goals. By setting yourself compelling bite-sized actions, you’re more likely to achieve, by firstly working on the small goals to gather momentum, then using that momentum to achieve the greater goals.
The original goal setting article can be found by following this link.
Good luck with your New Years Resolution and achieving your goals. Remember, if you create compelling and desirable goals, you’ll stand a much greater chance of achieving them.
