Don’t Let Black and White Thinking Prevent You From Accomplishing Goals That Are Hard to Achieve
Setting arbitrary but absolute start times or deadlines can sabotage efforts to change or reach important goals.
I think this is a timely topic, with there being just a little over a month until January 1st, which means a week until people start coming up with New Year’s resolutions. It’s not exactly a secret that most people who set such resolutions end up failing to keep them. It’s almost part of being in the club.
No one wants to hear about that rare bird who actually kept their New Year’s resolution. We all want to commiserate with each other over how long it took us to break it, have a good laugh at how unfailing human and flawed we are, give each other the right to dismiss it as unimportant, reinforce the idea that we can always do it later when we are actually ready.
The problem with all this is that January 1st has become focused on as the day of change, as the only time to set real resolutions with teeth. So when our resolutions turn out to be ephemeral, any other attempts during the year to change after failing this first one, will not be taken as seriously.
