The end of the year is almost upon you…. and your thoughts are turning to what your new years resolution will/should/could be…chances are your New Years Resolution is likely to be one of the classic ones.. you know the list
- lose weight
- stop smoking
- drink less
- get organised
- exercise daily
- to be happy
- to spend more time with family
- etc etc etc
Yes I know this year will be different to every other time you made a new years resolution….you are full of determination to succeed… … so I am going to do something completely different and give you the 100% guaranteed method of continuing to fail at your new years resolution…..
Firstly the good news!
100% of New Years Resolutions fail… what 100% of new years resolutions fail..garbage I hear you shout! What evidence do I have for that and why is that good news?
If you want the evidence just read any newspaper in the lead up to the new year, they will trot out all of the latest research and statistics for you. So lets just summarize it…..There are lots of studies that show that over half of all new years resolutions are done and dusted by the end of the first week of January, that more than eighty percent are done with by the end of January and that as few as eight percent of people make it to the end of the year.
AAAAHHAAA you shout… Eight percent of people make it !
I know, I know you’re committed and determined to be one of those eight percent….. But didn’t I just say 100% of new years resolutions fail, and I was going to give you the one hundred percent guaranteed way for you to be one of them…
Well yes I did…….
Heres the reason why…. change is a complex thing
When do you think of your new years resolution… some time between Christmas and news year day (or on new years day… regardless it is often after you have indulged in a great deal more of many of the things that you are vowing to quit)
Those decisions are really a spur of the moment, whimsical verbalization of your fantasy state…these resolutions have been made without any significant thought about what the desired state REALLY means to you, and what you actually have to make happen to make the desired state a reality.
There is a well-recognized process for making significant changes in a person’s life. (In fact I think we will explore this model over the next few posts…) The model looks like this.
It is almost guaranteed that the measly eight percent who succeeded didn’t think of their new years resolution in that Christmas/new year time period. I can almost guarantee you that they had been thinking about their desired change for a lot longer than the few days between Christmas and New Year, and that they had made both psychological and physical preparations for the change, in fact they had probably had a few false starts toward their goal in the lead up to the new year….. the only thing that their resolution has in common with yours is the January 1 start date.
and that is good news because…?
That is good news in my books because those eight percent aren’t really making a new years resolution…. they are just acting on a resolution made in the weeks or months leading up to new year, not a decision made on the spur of the moment because they needed a new years resolution to conform with tradition. They just happen to get bundled into the data because of the date they chose as a start date for their actions.
You are free..
The other good news is that because 100% of New Years Resolutions fail..this year YOU ARE FREE.… you don’t need to feel the pressure to make a new years resolution and suffer the inevitable sense of failure when you don’t make it past the first week or month of the new year with your resolution intact.
But I promised you a guaranteed method of continuing to fail at your new years resolution, and I like to keep my promises, so here it is…
Your guaranteed method to New Years Resolution Failure
Your guaranteed method to New Years Resolution Failure is to continue doing what you have done every other new year…. turn you mind to a resolution in these days between Christmas and New Year, tell yourself this year is the year that I will….(insert your resolution here)…, make zero preparations and then beat yourself up for a week, or a month or however long you usually last and the revert to your habit………
But…. if you are really serious about achieving a life change.. stick around and we will talk about the stages in the Change Model above….
