Why You Should’ve Set Your Resolutions On Dec 10th
Did you know that about 80% of people fail their New Year’s resolutions by February and that 92% of people fail altogether? I certainly did — been there, done that. Check.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about New Year’s Resolutions is that they’re over-hyped, unplanned and pretty unnecessary. Do you really need to wait for a certain day to start working towards a goal if you really wanted to achieve that goal in the first place? It’s great that you want a six pack but do you know what steps you’re taking to actually achieve it? You’ll be on some Keto-intermittent-Buddha diet for the first week before it all comes crashing down.
There are a couple of things that you can do to avoid making the common New Year’s Resolutions mistakes. The first one is to take small steps and actually create a plan towards your goal. If you didn’t have the drive to go to the gym for the last year, the clock moving to a certain point isn’t going to keep you motivated for the rest of the upcoming year. There’s two problems with this. First of all, we expect to do a full 180 from the moment we wake up the next morning and assume we can keep this up every single day for the next year. But unfortunately, all of these sudden changes can result in you being overwhelmed incredibly fast and never accomplishing your goals. Second of all, why do you even need the clock for you to accomplish something?
When we look at getting things done, we often seek external motivation before even attempting to tackle a task. I personally am guilty of this — often spending some time on Reddit looking at motivational posts before going to the gym. But you see, having the ideology of finding motivation and then taking action is the mistake that we make. Instead, we should do the opposite. Take some action, and once you start the motivation will follow and keep you going.
How many times have you put off writing an essay, but once you have the hook, you’re in the zone. Sometimes it’s hard to study but if you take the time to walk to the library the rest comes naturally. Once you get to the gym you can already imagine your future ripped body and it pushes you to work even harder. This is the simple trick to sticking to your goals, don’t seek motivation to start — just start and the motivation will follow. No matter how small the start is, just get up and do it. Flip your mindset around.
I can promise you that once you start, you’ll be able to stick through it. Do this for one day. Then another. Just keep going until you hit 21 days and taking action towards your goals will become a habit. Once it becomes a habit, sticking to your goal should come naturally and you’ll already have the mindset of just doing it and not seeking external motivation. If you want your New Year’s Resolution to come true, you should have started on December 10th so it could’ve been a habit going into the New Year — but it’s OK…I didn’t do that either. However, my New Year’s resolution is to read 50 books and to keep a little online journal to share my thoughts and I more than excited to see where I end up at the end of the year. Here’s to 2018.
