New Years Resolutions

How-To Overview

New years resolutions don't work, simple as that. They are either uttered while drunk, ill-conceived, or made in response to exterior pressures that havenothing to do with how you want to live your life. Most of us are either in the camp that make resolutions year-in and year-out, doomed to failure, or we're so cynical about all of the resolutions that we've made in the past (doomed to failure) that we don't bother making them anymore.

But resolutions can be good, reasonable, and successfully achieved if you approach them with a realistic, focused vision. This wiki brings together a few tips that will help you conceive, organize, and follow through successfully on this year's resolutions.

Focus on Yourself

Resolutions are about you and about changing your life for the better. If you are in a relationship, work in a group environment, or spend a lot of time with a close-knit group of friends, consider how your resolutions will impact those around you. If your resolutions will involve others, you'd better run your ideas by them first. Or better still, simply focus on resolutions that will only involve you and will only make you a better person. You may be surprised at how your own personal growth canpositively effect those around you.

Identify Problems You Want to Change

The thing about cleaning up your act, as any program-savvy addict will tell you is that you need to want to change. Responding to pressure from your boss or your girlfriend is going to make the task of sticking to your resolution really difficult if you don't want to change. But consider the issue in all its complexity: are the rewards that your boss or girlfriend may withhold if you don't stick to this resolution enough to make you want to change? That counts, too. Don't try to change something about yourself when you know you don't believe in either the change or what you can get out of the change.

Conversely, if you don't want to stop doing something, you should ask yourself why you think you should stop. If something you've been doing all year is dangerous or in some way ultimately bad for you, you should probably consider stopping. But if you are not hurting yourself or others, consider the pressures you feel to change and ask yourself if responding to those pressures is really worth it to you.

Identify Problems You Are Capable of Changing

Don't take on resolutions you can't handle. A resolution to kill an addiction--smoking, drinking, gambling, porn, whatever--may not reasonably be a matter of quitting cold turkey. A good resolution can be as basic as deciding to not feed the addiction at the same rate you have been. Maybe you need to put off quitting completely for another year and focus instead on slowing down considerably. Be honest with yourself about what you are capable of.

Clarify Your Steps to Success

Telling yourself that you are going to eat better is great, but you need a game plan to make it work--something that you can come back to throughout the year to put you back in focus. The best way to do this is to break down the project into tangible steps that you can take on a daily basis and which will add up to turning around a bad behavior. The best way to do that is to get it all written out in front of you. Whether it's a wall calendar or an Excel file, writing down the all elements of the negative behaviors--in the case of eating poorly, for example: not eating a nutritious breakfast and snacking on crap and eating too large portions, etc--will get you closer to being able to daily remind yourself of the problems that have become second nature to you.

Don't Stop There: Set Challenges and Goals

If you are capable of quitting or drastically reducing a negative activity in your life, don't be content with simply doing away with the bad--replace it with good. If you are cutting out bad food, focus on replacing it with good food. If you are cutting out wasteful activities, replace with them with efficient or creative activities. If you are spending less time with people who are creating negative energy in yourlife, find some people who will help you create some positive energy.

Tips Regarding Producing Results

The above is a well organized formula for identifying resolutions and following through. But even with well conceived and organized resolutions and mapped out action plans, things can still stop you in your tracks. Here are a couple of things to consider in being unstoppable around producing results.

Focus on Being in Action, Not Only on the Results
A common pitfall is to focus entirely on the results, and not on the actions you're taking and who you're being about your goals. It is important to identify the results because they define what success will look like and provide motivation along the way. But consider that any struggle you encounter along the way is a function of you being attached to your success or failure in producing the results. Stick with the formula above, and add on this step: Ask yourself - "Who do I have to be in order to achieve my desired results? What does it look like if I'm being that way?".

Let's say your resolution is to lose 10 pounds in 6 weeks. Envision yourself being successful at week 3 or 4, or after week 6. Don't stop at what it physically looks like, look at what types of behaviors you are exhibiting that have gotten you success. Are you being someone who is committed? Someone who stays informed and is willing to learn? Envision yourself in circumstances where you'd typically take counter-productive actions (like finding yourself in a candy store) - how you are now behaving in those circumstances in your success vision? Are you being someone who is free and happy? Someone who's self expressed? At ease with how things are?

Whatever it is for you, identify that "way of being" and create it now--instead of waiting for your results to show up before being that way. Use that to provide structure around your actions (i.e. If I take on being fully self expressed or at ease right now, how does that affect my eating or exercise habits?), and make it the focus of your resolution. Keep your desired results in close proximity for motivation and to gauge success, but maintain your focus on being who you said you'd be.

Think of it this way: At the end of 6 weeks the chances are that you'll lose the 10 pounds - but if even if you don't, if you've been being self expressed or at ease (or whatever you committed to) in your life, you can't lose.

Be Straight with Yourself
There are usually specific reasons why we get stopped in producing a given result. It's too difficult. It's no fun. I'm not achieving desired results. I can't stop eating ice cream. Whatever they are, consider that what immediately comes to mind is just the surface. Identifying what's beneath them can help you to press on in spite of them.

Don't be afraid to be real with yourself--make a commitment to be insightful about what obstacles come up for you and what's behind them. Take a look at what lies beneath the typical (surface) reasons like the ones listed above. Are you feeling like a failure? Do you secretly believe that you won't achieve these results? Do you feel like you don't deserve these results? That may sound cheesy, but try it out - more often than not there's a pretty heavy feeling behind the surface-level reasons that stop you from doing something that you've committed to. It's easy to shy away from them because they're not always pretty, but realizing them will allow you to be free from them.

Once you get to what's stopping you, refer back to your original commitment and who you said you'd be at the beginning, and create new actions based on your newfound insight. If you continually evaluate what's stopping you and re-commit to your goals, you'll be unstoppable.

Set Up a Support Structure
It's important that the people in your life know what you're up to. Consider this: People know you as being a certain way - your habits, personality, tendencies - and they relate to you based on who they know you to be. If your resolution involves changing something about yourself or changing your behaviors, let the people in your life know upfront so that they can begin to relate to you in that new way immediately - not only after your results are achieved.

Take the example of losing 10 pounds. If the people in your life currently relate to you as someone who puts immediate gratification (i.e. indulging in food, alcohol/smoking, hours of reality TV) ahead of health, they'll continue to relate to you that way unless something noticeable changes, or you tell them not to. If you want them to stop sending you boxes of chocolates, urging you to join them in a smoke break, or egging you on to play hookie from the gym to watch Survivor, then let them know what you're up to. It can be general support (i.e. I'm taking on losing 10 pounds in 6 weeks and I'd really like your support along the way), or specific actions (i.e. Can you help me limit it to one drink at the Friday night work parties?).

Once people know what you're up to, they'll start to think of you with that in mind. Choose people in your life who you spend the most time with or who are the most influential. Before you know it you'll have a natural support structure that keeps you in line with your resolutions and goals.

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