New Year's Resolutions

Here comes another year, another chance to start something fresh and make a new list of resolutions. However, If you are like many others (including me) who are not good at keeping their resolutions, welcome to the club! We make resolutions like hitting a gym, developing a new habit, improving in sports, and more, but fail to keep them. I don’t know whether I can keep all my resolutions this year, but I want to share my thoughts through this article.

Understanding Resolutions: Resolutions are mostly new goals that we have not achieved in the past. Resolving requires no effort, but simply writing it down. It makes us feel good and hopeful about the wonderful things that might happen, but writing it down has been the first step that requires merely no effort.

Two different acts for a feeling: Resolving is one act that makes us feel good in a certain way, but another act (or set of acts/tasks) actually makes a resolution achievable. The act of carrying out something we plan was not present while writing it down. The actual act of resolving something is often blocked by procrastination, time management, and other resource issues. However, we feel good in the same way when we write a resolution. When we actually accomplish it, accomplishing it obviously gives us a stronger sense of the same feeling that was initially triggered while penning down a resolution.

Resolution - new neuronal connections: A resolution is a new habit; a habit is a new neuronal pathway that we are trying to develop. It only gets stronger and becomes automatic with practice or repetitions. We need to understand that every resolution is committed to developing new neuronal patterns that need commitment and action.

Some ideas to resolve new goals this year

Getting excited about the future: Emotions play a vital role in our lives, and we human beings experience emotions all the time - whether it is love, anger, fear, empathy, etc... Emotions are attached to our behaviors, positive emotions attached to a behavior encourage or motivate us, and negative emotions attached to a behavior discourage or demotivate us. Most of the time, we fail to keep our resolutions because we either have negative emotions attached to our desired goals, or the plan of execution is unknown, or both. I found that I have a ‘shortage of time’ feeling (negative emotion) associated with hitting the gym every day with careful examination. Going to the gym will take much time every day and cut my time to take up other tasks. If we don’t replace negative emotions with positive ones, it is impossible to acquire a new habit. Getting excited about the future “You” creates many positive emotions and can break the holding pattern. A simple visualization of the new wonderful “You” and feeling the excitement is a good start for the anticipated positive changes.

False Hopes are not Resolutions: Many of us set false and unrealistic goals that can affect our confidence. Resolutions should be specific, realistic, and to be executed in small chunks/steps. Every big problem or goal can be broken down into easily solvable or achievable small units to be celebrated.

Find a reporting buddy: Don’t keep your resolutions/goals to yourself, but share with others. Find someone to report your progress to, and in exchange frequently, you can be their reporting buddy. Reporting buddies ask how you are faring with your resolution, and it is an amazing reminder-trigger system. Call one of your buddies today and tell them that you want him/her to be your reporting buddy. You can have multiple reporting buddies for your resolutions and, in return, offer them to be their reporting buddy.

Look back to look forward: Looking back to the year that has gone by may reveal many insights. You can summarize what worked for you, what did not, and the new learnings. Use valuable insights from last year to make things better in the new year.

Surround Yourself (selectively): As per the energy theory, every living and non-living objects store and emit energy. We need to make sure that we don’t have unnecessary clutter around ourselves; cleaning the clutter makes sure that we value items that we really need for our growth. Similarly, getting surrounded by positive and encouraging people makes sure that our energy levels are always at their peak. The positive environment and people inspire us to align and achieve the goals we set for ourselves. Get rid of all the negative influences and unnecessary clutter this year.

Asking better questions: Asking questions is the basis of thinking and learning. We have learned everything by asking different how(s), why(s), what(s), and so on. Asking questions to oneself directs the brain to search for answers – the fundamental of thinking. Many questions should back up every resolution, and continuously seeking answers enable us to achieve our goals.

All the very best for all the great things you have planned this year. Happy New Year, and Thanks for reading this post.