New Year Resolutions

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For as long as I can remember, people have been making new year resolutions, and have been failing at it. This year, more than 90 million adult Americans made new year resolutions and the top resolutions were about health and financial well being. With billions of people around the world resolving to do better each year, why are things getting worse? Why is it that with age, we rarely get better, only more complacent?

Last year, I shared my guide for living, which has worked for me, in that every year, I’m building on the same goals, and not setting new ones every 1st of January. The advantage of having a life plan is that temporary upsets do not take you off course at least not completely.

I don’t have statistics to support this, but from experience and observation, most new year resolutions fail, this article shares why I think most resolutions fail.

Resolutions are made emotionally

Rarely do we make resolutions based on a rational thought process. In an ideal world, everyone would have at least a day or a week of careful consideration of what they need to achieve, and what it will take to achieve it. Followed by an in depth self evaluation to determine whether we have the skills and strength needed to achieve our resolutions, and what other tools we may need.This rarely is the case.

Most resolutions are as a result of a short term discomfort and desire to do better, which isn’t rooted in a deep need to truly be better. For example, most people will emotionally resolve to lose weight after holiday binging and will not take time to cultivate the discipline to eat healthy.

We make different resolutions every year

I believe  that first, a good life is an accumulation of successive good decisions that are linked to each other.  Second, some things take more than a year to accomplish. Some habits we develop will take even 10 years to bear fruit, for example, good saving and investing habits.

Changing our resolutions every year will cause us to abandon certain things prematurely, not reaping from them, and claiming that resolutions don’t work. Your new year resolutions should build on the previous years’ resolutions, and that’s why I believe a life plan is important.

Our resolutions are about us

Of the 10 top resolutions made in 2011 in Pittsburgh, only one was about other people, and I’m sure this was replicated across the globe. There are two theories why resolutions we make solely for ourselves fail. First, there’s little or no accountability to ourselves. For example, if I resolve to commit resources to educate a child next year, I’m likely to do something about it immediately which locks me in past the period where the ‘steam’ runs out. If I commit to exercise every morning on the other hand, unless I have a friend to whip me every time I fail to, there’s very little motivation to keep going.

Second reason why these resolutions stick longer is that it’s easier to drop off the wagon on resolutions concerning ourselves compared to when it’s about others. Helping others produces a ‘feel good’ emotion which can keep us going for sometime.

We make them on the 1st of January

I once told a friend that he didn’t need to wait for the 1st of January to quit smoking. If he really wanted to, he’d start working on it there and then. There’s something about the beginning of the year that deceives us into thinking we will do things different just because it’s a new year. Well, there’s no scientific proof that anything changes within us at the beginning of the year.

We make resolutions based on a baseless emotion, and once this wears off we revert to our old selves. How about making that change now, instead of waiting for the 1st of January 2012?

We expect instant change

Change is a process. Everything good in life is as a result of process, not magical transformation. When you make a resolution, you should be cognizant of the fact that you’re likely to backslide. Once, twice, or ten times. Change is a process and one must be prepared to summon the resolve with which they made the resolution in the first place, to get back on the wagon whenever they backslide.

They’re immeasurable

This is self explanatory. You’re not able to tell how well you’re doing, unless you can measure progress. Resolutions such as; ‘spend more time with family’, or ‘live a healthier lifestyle’, rarely result to any substantial change, unless they’re accompanied by a statement on what exactly achieving them will entail.

Do you make new year resolutions? If not, how do you measure your personal growth over time?  Has your method worked for you so far? What’s your opinion of life plans? Do they work or are they just another ‘self-help’ deception?