By David Sanders, Certified Master Consultant
Over 80% of the people I’ve surveyed make New Year’s resolutions. Sadly, most of them expect these to be broken before they even get started. In fact, fewer than 20% actually keep them for any length of time. And at the end of the year, only about 5% can say they felt they had succeeded in actually keeping their New Year’s Resolutions.
So, is it really an exercise in futility to go through this annual ritual? Is it really possible to change? Can things actually get better? Most people think so. Yet New Year’s resolutions have a bad reputation as being almost hopeless wishes that rarely come true.
First off, what kind of resolutions do people usually make?
1. Cut out the junk food and lose 20 pounds of ugly fat.
2. Start a vigorous exercise program.
3. Stop smoking/drinking/etc.
4. Make more time for family.
5. Play more/have more fun.
6. Get rich.
7. Improve my skills and really get ahead this year.
8. Be a better wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend/parent/kid.
9. Be completely, 100% truthful for at least one whole day.
10. Win the Nobel Prize for economics for single-handedly saving the world economy.
Maybe you’ve made some of these yourself. How did you do in keeping them?
Assuming for a moment that you’re among the 80% for whom many of those high ideals didn’t last, let’s take a look at how that’s usually done to see if we can spot any faults in the usual (lousy) approach.
1. Get a pen and paper or sit down at your favorite keyboard.
2. Remember the things you got criticized for.
3. Half-heartedly resolve not to do those things anymore.
4. Put the list away and forget about it.
5. When you notice yourself not keeping one or two of the points from your list, give up and go back to the “old you” using your choice of the following excuses:
a. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
b. “I guess I just can’t change after all.”
c. “He/She is such a jerk, I’ll get back at ‘em by going back to doing things that bug ‘em just to make ‘em wrong!”
d. “I’ll get a better start next year and I’ll really make it happen then.”
e. “Still crazy after all these years.”
Since we know that doing things this way doesn’t work, let’s take a look at what it would take to make resolutions that actually changed things for the better. Probably you’ve made some resolutions that resulted in changes, right? Since about 20% of the people do pretty well at it, why not decide that this year you’ll be successful?
OK, this is where the rubber meets the road, so read carefully! After all, what do you have to lose by trying it?
What are you doing when you sit down around the end of the year and start writing? You’re making decisions about what things in your life should change. Select things that YOU really want to change.
When you decide where you want to go for lunch or which show to watch, you are deciding things, and you usually make those things happen, right? So probably your ability to decide and do things is OK.
But a New Year’s resolution is not just any kind of decision. It’s one that’s supposed to last for awhile. It’s also supposed to overcome some weakness you may have, often one that’s part of how you live.
Let’s be real. If you don’t figure out what is causing you to be/do/have that unwanted thing, how likely is it to change? It’s like pulling the top off of a weed instead of pulling it out by the roots.
So that brings us to our second step. If you really expect to change, you have to do more than just wish.
For example, if you want to lose weight, you need to find out why you’re overweight and pull out the cause by the roots. Just selecting the “diet of the month” is not likely to solve it for you. Things have causes. You may have to learn about nutrition. A large soft drink has enough sugar in it to add fat at a maddening rate, yet we see increasingly obese Americans drinking ever-larger cups of sugar-water and going back for free refills — too much sugar can even be a threat to their health.
Or take an unhappy relationship for example. Try realistically looking at what you have been doing in that relationship that contributes to the problems. Then cut it out. The other person may see you change and suddenly be much better. It has happened.
The two examples above are pretty undesirable, even dangerous situations. One thing that will help your resolve is to admit the gravity of the consequences to yourself if you don’t change.
If you do the steps above, you will be ahead of the crowd, but your New Year’s resolutions might still fail you. Here are added steps that the strong-of-heart will take that will make all the difference a year from now.
You have to do a little soul searching and use self discipline to make your life go the way you want it to go, no matter what other people think or say. There are some people that are bad influences — the kind of people we don’t want hanging out with our kids. It may be you’ll need to change some associations if you find someone is pulling you down.
Finally, it’s not enough to just set a resolution — you need to set things up in your life so that the changes happen and continue.
If you do this and then look back over your New Year’s resolutions and make them firm, at the end of 2008, you’ll be one of the “lucky” (smart) ones whose dreams have come true!
David Sanders is CEO of Creative Business Strategies. He can be reached at CEO@CreativeStrats.com.
