A New Year's Resolution You Can Win

If you are like 80+% of the world, you failed at your New Year’s Resolutions last year. In fact, most people have already broken their new promises by mid-February.  

IN THE FOLLOWING NOTE, WE ARE GOING TO OFFER YOU A NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION YOU ARE GUARANTEED TO SUCCEED AT. 

Interested?

2020, of course, was a better year than most to “fail” at resolutions. Love it or hate it or somewhere in between, 2020 was full of surprises that shifted the way that most of us approached work and life. Trying to cope with taking on new ways of living is hard enough under normal circumstances, right?

In 2020, the most popular resolutions became much gentler, with Inc magazine reporting that the top resolution last year was “Actually doing my New Year’s Resolution,” with “being happier”, “staying motivated” and “being a better person” added to the usual list of dieting, exercising, losing weight, saving more, and learning a new skill. In fact, dieting dropped from first place to fourth on Inc’s list, with quitting smoking or drinking and finding a new job dropping off the list entirely.

Yet these resolutions all came before the COVID pandemic struck, and the shift had nothing to do with COVID. Fascinating, right? We suspect that this year the most popular resolutions will get gentler still, and that health and relationships will lead the way.

So here’s our suggestion. Instead of a general goal with a hard end you may never reach, such as losing twenty pounds or saving a thousand dollars, what about if you simply take on a simple new action or two on a daily basis? Something you can get done easily, that you simply cannot fail to execute?

What if you take on CELEBRATING every single day this year? 

We seldom really celebrate, and when we do it’s usually reserved for big victories, major moments in life like a graduation, wedding, job promotion, or landing your biggest ever client. What if you just celebrate another day passing and whatever happened that day? You don’t have to throw a party or buy a new car – you can just turn on a song you love and dance, or send a self-loving message to people who would get you, or eat your favorite fruit for dessert. According to the American Psychological Association, the benefits of regular celebration include: 

• More energy
• Less stress and anxiety
• Better health
• More exercise
• Better sleep
• More goals achieved

In other words, just celebrating a little every day already helps you achieve a lot of the most common resolutions without even having to promise yourself any of them.

An easy way to make sure you celebrate is to put it into your calendar.

Or to make it really easy, do it right before you go to sleep. Look back on your day and identify what you would like to celebrate. 

Or plan ahead on what you will celebrate at day’s end.

It doesn’t have to be a big success, or even a "success." You can celebrate “failing” - you can celebrate just the fact that you put in the effort. Or that you made it through the day at all. 

If you’re not sure what to celebrate, here is a list of seven sample activities that you can select from. You could easily pick one that you do every day, or assign one to each day of the week.

1. Perform an act of kindness

Studies show that kindness is truly contagious – when you are kind those around you become kinder as well, and not only back to you, but they pay it forward. Earlier this year, the Innotivity Institute and the South African Creative Industries Incubator partnered with the UNDP to deliver the “Kindness Contagion” pan-African song and music video. We will be extending this campaign with a youth-driven media project sponsored by UNDP from January, so look out for the #spreadkindnessafrica on all social media platforms. By doing one simple act of kindness, you transform your relationship to the balance of generosity and selfishness. You can do a random act for a stranger, and it doesn’t have to cost you any money. Just telling a passer-by each day that they look nice can create a profound shift in your experience of what it means to be human.

2. Appreciate someone

You already know the power of gratitude in embracing your life. But few of us take this to the next level by appreciating the people and things we are grateful for. Appreciation literally means “increasing the value of.” By taking a few to take an action that increases the value of a person or thing you are grateful for, you recycle the benefit you have gotten, again without losing anything. Do a favour for someone that did a favour for you. Do something extra at work that wasn’t expected. If you’re grateful for today’s weather, send a note to your friend asking them to bask in the sunshine for two minutes. Appreciation is a miracle just like kindness is - one of those things in life that can create an infinite cycle of value without any sacrifice.

3. Change your perception about something you don’t like

Whatever you are experiencing as unpleasant is coming from a certain way of seeing the world, a negative or critical context. Even if it’s something you “obviously” shouldn’t like - losing your job, say – you can still change your way of looking at it to make it pleasant. What did you dislike about the job in the first place, and what new opportunities does not having it anymore afford you? Make an effort not to see this new vision as a consolation prize (“well at least..”) but rather as a benefit that far outweighs what you experienced as damage.

4. Meet one new person

Social media makes this one so much simpler. Yes, you could approach a stranger in the supermarket and explain your goal to make sure they don’t see you as a creepy stalker. But you can also find someone on LinkedIn who looks interesting, from a group you are in, or the friend of a friend, and write a note to tell them you are expanding your network. Just exchanging a greeting and introduction with a new person every day would mean you’ll meet nearly 400 new people this year and expand your ability to be open to the world around you. 

5. Have a short conversation with a friend you haven’t spoken to in awhile 

How many people do you know who you think, “Wow, it’s been so long since we spoke?” People you might not have talked to since high school? Or even family members who meant a lot to you growing up but you realize you haven’t heard their voice in a decade? What value would it bring your life to spend just ten minutes reconnecting on Zoom or the phone? What would it mean if at the end of the year, you spoke to over three hundred of these folks?

6. Listen to a new song

This might be the easiest of all. You might already have recommendations from friends, or you can pick something at random from an artist you enjoy or an online playlist. Bonus: dance around to it like crazy and use it to celebrate!

7. Say yes to something you would normally say no to

One of the great experiences of my life was a week in which my ex-wife and myself said yes to each other no matter what. Have you ever tried this? We started to notice how reflexively we resist what we’re not used to or what we think doesn’t suit us. By saying yes automatically, we started to realize that we could help the other person or make them happy by just doing something simple that really didn’t harm us at all. What if you just looked for something in the day that you felt like saying no to and instead said yes? It could be something very simple, like, “Please could you close the window,” or giving five rand to the parking guard even though your husband was sitting in the car. More importantly, imagine the impact of noticing how often you say no and what you say no to without thinking about it. How might just noticing that change your life?

BONUS: Freewriting

One of the most potent and effective ways to up your creativity with almost no effort at all is the practice of Freewriting. This is the most basic exercise we recommend during the Innovation Explosion creativity and innovation training. It’s a technique that has been around probably as long as writing itself. Countless creators, both well-known and never heard from, have used it to practice letting go of conscious control and strengthening the channel to the subconscious. Dorothea Brande suggested it in her book Becoming a Writerin 1934. Julia Cameron popularized it for the modern mainstream in The Artist’s Way, in which she called this practice “Morning Pages,” because she suggested you do the writing ?rst thing in the morning. Jack Kerouac took it to extremes, making it the basis of all the writng he did; he adapted the practice from the trance writing of William Butler Yeats. Natalie Goldberg (Writing Down the Bones), adapted much of Kerouac’s thoughts on the matter. But Freewriting is valuable to everyone, not only writers. Really there is almost nothing simpler in the world. Take out a pen or a pencil and a notebook and write. Do not think. Do not stop. Just let your hand guide you along the page. And most important of all, for now, DO NOT GO BACK AND READ ANY OF IT. It is best to write about a thousand words - three full manuscript pages. Usually this takes 20-30 minutes max. You did not have to write something “good.” No point worrying about that, because you won’t read it afterward. The exercise is not about WHAT you are writing, but THAT you are writing. The content does not matter. It’s just about rebuilding the connection to your subconscious and overcoming your inner critic. It’s the simplest thing in the world – just sit down and write whatever. And yet most people find it very hard at first. Don’t stop? Don’t think? Don’t judge? HOW CAN YOU ASK THIS OF ME!? And yet literally the only way you can do this “wrong” is by stopping – or not doing it at all.

If you take on celebrating something every single day in 2021, you truly cannot fail. Are you willing to try out this new habit?

Write and let us know if you are taking on this practice.... 

Or what resolutions you’re determined to make happen.

Happy New Year! 

Many Blessings and Best Wishes for 2021!