One Thing You Need To Absolutely Do Before Setting Your New Year Resolutions.
It is almost end of the current year and a new year is in sight. You are probably taking some well deserved break as well as pondering about setting some new year resolutions. We all hope that a New Year will bring new luck and start things a fresh and set these new year resolutions and start announcing them to friends and family.
Wait a minute. Before we move to new year resolutions, did you think about what happened to the current years resolutions that you set almost an year ago. Are those resolutions still with you or did they meet their grave long ago?
If you are one of those who belong to the elite group people who have met the current years resolutions. Excellent work. Happy New Year and you probably don’t need this article (please read on anyway).
If you are one of those who forgot about those resolutions long ago or did not meet your resolutions. Please read on.
Before I go further, here are some infamous statistics:
About 23% of people give up on their new year resolutions within first week of the new year and staggering 64% give up within first month. And 91% of the people do not meet their resolution.
I was part of that infamous statistics too — until I started reflecting on why I am not meeting these resolutions. Reflection is a game changer.
Reflection helped me understand why I was unable to meet those resolutions and plan carefully before I set further resolutions.
What is a resolution anyway and why do you set it around New Years Day?
Resolution is a firm decision to do something. In a way, resolution is like setting a goal for yourself. People set new year resolutions more so because it is a new year (and nothing to do with the stage of their life) and for humans anything new is exciting and anything old is boring.
The fact is that the resolutions can be set at any time of the year. However, New year resolutions kind of become a cultural thing and people set them anyway irrespective of what stage of life they are at.
Why people fail to meet their new year resolutions?
1. “New” fizzles out: One main reason people can’t meet their new year resolutions is because resolutions are made out of emotion that arises due to excitement around new-ness. Once that new-ness fizzles out, your excitement fades out and you are back to your old ways. Resolutions work better when you are determined from inside and not when determined by excitement.
2. You have set wage goals and not specific goals — One of the reasons why we fail at any goal (and not particularly new year goals) is because we set them too broad. If you want to work out and lose 20 lbs is a wage goal. Instead I will work out 5 days a week for 30 minutes a day until end of June and lose 20 lbs is a specific goal. Which one do you think has higher chances of achieving?
3. You did not prioritise or did not account for the hurdles that you face in your usual routine — The resolutions are set around the holiday season where you have a lot of time for yourselves and you are relatively stress free. But, when the reality kicks in when you start going back to work or college or manage your kids — priorities. Chances are that you haven’t accounted for those when you are setting up your new year goals. Other way to put this is you did not prioritise your resolution.
4. You lacked accountability and discipline — Discipline is key. Few people are self motivated and very disciplined. They are accountable for themselves. But most of us may not be as disciplined and if there is no accountability, chances are that we will be off track very soon.
5. You did not track your resolutions — If you don’t track your resolutions, you don’t know how you are progressing and if you don’t know your progress, you get demotivated very soon.
Why Reflection matters?
Reflection will help you understand what you are lacking. Are you seriously serious about your resolutions or are you having resolutions for the sake of having the resolutions.
If you are really serious about your resolutions, then why did you fail? Is it because you lacked discipline? Or is it because you had unrealistic goals? Or is it because you did not prioritize? Or is it because you did not track them?
If you have reflected on why you failed with your prior years resolutions, you become aware of why you were not able to meet your goals. If you become aware of why you were not able to meet your goals, you can set more realistic resolutions and create systems (set specific goals, prioritize them, have an accountability partner and be disciplined and track them) to meet the resolutions.
Before you set the New Year’s Resolutions, please do yourself a favour and reflect on what happened to your prior resolutions.
