We’re rapidly approaching New Year’s, where we all make resolutions, many of which don’t stick, and we then castigate ourselves when our grand ambitions don’t persist for more than a few weeks (or days), or fail to materialize at all.
My general theory about resolutions is that they’re better made year-round, not on a day that has symbolic value but little practical meaning (for resolutions, at least).
Yes, we’re entering a new calendar year. No, that doesn’t mean this is our only window to make positive change in our lives, and if we miss it, well, we tried—now we gotta wait till next year to make another attempt.
I’ve personally found that resolutions are almost always easier to maintain when they’re stripped of this symbolism and implied magic. Every once in a while they really are the be all, end all, but more frequently these sorts of changes (because that’s all a resolution is: a declared resolve to make some kind of positive change) are minor upgrades, or maybe represent a few shuffling steps toward a more distant destination.
Thinking in those terms, it becomes a little easier to attempt and maintain these sorts of progressions. They’re not dramatic, one-off turning points in our personal bildungsromans; at most they’re single frames in a snappy montage that may eventually culminate with something pretty cool.
That doesn’t mean they’re unimportant, of course. It’s nice to incorporate beneficial new habits and practices into our lives, and even better if we’re able to sustain them for longer than a month.
One resolution-related trick that works pretty well, for me, is to focus on the “why” of new undertakings, not the “how.”
Through this lens, going to the gym four-times a week could evolve, after several weeks of strain and missed goals, into twice-weekly gym sessions paired with daily walks and periodic games of ultimate frisbee at the park.
The exercise—using your body and staying healthy—is the real goal. Going to the gym as often as possible is one way to accomplish that goal. But if less gym and more other things accomplishes the same large-scale purpose (health) in a more maintainable way, that’ll tend to be the better option.
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