What Was That New Year's Resolution Again?

Have you found yourself suddenly remembering one of your New Year’s resolutions only when your brain catches you in the act of doing what you promised yourself you wouldn’t do? The mind wanders. Humans are creative, wanting to explore whenever the chance arises — but usually within the confines of familiar surroundings. Anything that puts you in a box separate from the one located in your comfort zone is sure to leave you wanting to creep out of its fidgety unknown to the comfortable known. Resolutions are like a nagging spouse: Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Do this instead of that. They’re perfectly capable of driving you up the wall and leaving you wondering why you decided to subject yourself to such internal conflict. So, if you’ve already found yourself doing what the second item on your Resolution’s List clearly instructed you not to do, or perhaps, if you struggle to even remember what the second item is, then don’t feel too bad. It’s perfectly normal. Also “normal” is to not accomplishing your resolutions. Studies have shown that less than 25% of people actually stay committed to their resolutions after just 30 days, and only 8% accomplish them. Evidently, when it comes to hearkening diligently to the voice behind Resolution Lists, favour is skewed only towards a small fraction of the population. Clearly, for most of us, our 2019 Resolutions should either be scrapped or looked at from a different perspective. What if we create a bridge that links our resolutions to something more tangible, holistic and worthwhile? Yes, you guessed it right: A goal. Many people say that you should create goals and not resolutions. But believe it or not, goals and resolutions aren’t disconnected concepts. A goal is the desired result. A resolution is a firm decision not to do (or to do) something. If you are determined to reach a goal, you need to make a firm decision not to do or to do particular things. You need to make resolutions to achieve goals. If you have a goal to save a particular amount of money by the end of the year, you need to make a firm decision not to do or to do some things. This may include a resolution to make a budget and stick to it, or even a resolution to embrace a shopping ban for a fixed period of time per month. So perhaps a major reason why the majority of us end up scrapping our New Year’s resolutions is that they aren’t linked to anything meaningful. Our curious minds want to know why we do things we do. When someone asks you to change the way you normally do something — no matter how little it is — your initial response (at least in your mind) would be ‘why?’ If we find there’s a good enough reason to comply, then we usually do. If not, then we delve deeper to uncover if it would be beneficial for us to conform to the request. A similar internal conflict happens with resolutions: We make a long list of resolutions. We commit to them for a while. We get tempted. We resist. We get tempted again. We barely resist. We get tempted once more. We ask ourselves why we made the resolution in the first place. Our brains give us a reason that isn’t good enough in the immediate moment. We succumb. We feel bad later. Resolutions would be made more attractive if they are linked to goals. It would create an ideal platform for us to visualise a goal and then make firm decisions — or resolutions — to enable us to reach it. So don’t worry, it’s not too late to change up the structure of your resolution plan. It’s never too late to make things right. Besides, you wouldn’t want to wait till 2020 to start over just because it feels better when you’re able to declare that you successfully kept to all your resolutions for the year. You would be doing a great disservice yourself. So, go ahead. Pick up the pieces, build bridges, and most importantly, always remind yourself what’s on the other side.