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Resolve to Never Make a New Year’s Resolution

/in /by

I hereby resolve…blah…blah…blah

The best resolution you could make in January is to not make a New Year’s Resolution. They rarely work, and tying them to the New Year nearly ensures they never will.

Last year I reported that 97% of people who make New Year’s Resolutions to lose weight actually weigh more 12 months later. New Year’s Resolutions enrich companies selling diets and ab-duction machines, but they don’t effect real change.

Later, Dude…
A New Year’s Resolution is almost always focused more on celebrating the decision than on resolving to be different. There isn’t a wit of difference between Mardi Gras and New Year’s Resolutions. Both of these “decision” mechanisms are built on putting things off until a special date where you can then celebrate the decision to start losing weight, working out, spending time with family, or giving up smoking.

Until then, you can go on pigging out, being mean, ignoring family and smoking like a chimney. Now that you’ve announced you will quit on some future date, your self-destructive behavior is actually permissible to “get it out of your system”. Mardi Gras and New Years makes your actions downright celebrated – get your glutton on, because soon you’ll be in a forsaken and tortured desert of good living.

Getting Ready to Get Ready to…
Here’s a clue – the more you need to point to January 1 as the day “I will absolutely start doing or stop doing x”, the less you probably mean it. If it’s important, change now. If you have to walk on coals or chant at your vision board to prepare for the big day, you can save yourself some self-imposed guilt and just keep going with what’s not working.

My mother passed away a few weeks ago. She used to tell me, “Chuck, there’s no such thing as excuses, there’s not even reasons, there are just priorities.” She lived that out well, making no excuses and simply doing the things she found important. She didn’t live to make decisions on special days; she just DID what she VALUED.

How to Change Something
We do what is a priority, not what we SAY is a priority. Last year I gave you three few practical suggestions on how to DO our priorities. I added a fourth this year:
1) Don’t “get motivated” Most of this walk-on-coals stuff is emotion-based and has no lasting power. You’re either committed or you aren’t. I don’t get motivated to brush my teeth. I either do it or I don’t.
2) Run toward something, not away from something. People who want to lose weight rarely lose any. “I want to stop being fat,” is running away from being fat. “I see myself living a great lifestyle,” is running toward something. Run toward a great life, not away from being fat. Read, Get a Second Planet.
3) Make decisions through a new lens. See yourself and/or your business AS IF YOU WERE ALREADY THERE. Read last years New Year’s Resolution post on how Peter Arnell went from 406 lbs to 150 lbs and stayed there. If you can’t already CLEARLY envision yourself exercising three times a week, don’t even start.
4) Diligence, not Discipline – Anybody can have the DISCIPLINE to do something for 30 days. But few people will have the DILIGENCE to continue for the rest of the year. Diligence is a drip system. Do the right thing a little bit every day – it will add up to something big down the road. Diligent rules; discipline drools.

The above four steps are all about intentionality vs. hope. Intention is the key because:

You get what you intend, not what you hope for.

New Year’s Resolutions are full of emotion-based “hope”. Real decisions are full of intention and don’t need a special day or audience to be walked out into the open.

Don’t get there. Be there.
Don’t gin up the motivation to do something on a special day. Just start living the way you know will make you more successful. Today. It’s OK to cheat on your New Year’s Resolution and start it a few days before January 1. Especially if you actually want to change.

Where do you want to be in 2013? Tell the world here, be there inside today, and then let’s go do it on the outside for the whole year. Carpe Diem – seize TODAY and enjoy doing changing something that will make your life, and maybe even your checking account, richer.

New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work

/in /by

But quiet resolve will.

The last New Year’s resolution I made was 20+ years ago, and it was to never make another New Year’s resolution. It’s the only one I’ve ever kept.

We do it every year. “I hereby resolve”… blah, blah, blah. A kept resolution is harder to find than a moose in Miami.

97% of people who decide to lose weight actually weigh more 12 months later. All other New Years “resolutions” have just about as much resolve behind them. Let’s change that.

How to actually change something.

1) Don’t “get motivated”. Don’t make resolutions at the end of a weekend motivational seminar.* Most of this stuff is emotion-based and has no lasting power. You’re either committed or you aren’t. I don’t get motivated to brush my teeth. I either do it or I don’t.

2) Run toward something, not away from something. People who want to lose weight rarely lose any. “I want to stop being fat.” That’s running away from being fat.

People who want to live a healthy long life are much more likely to not be fat. “I want to be able to…” That is running toward something.

The gravitational pull of what you are running away from will always suck you back in. Likewise, the gravitational pull of something you are running toward will release you from the pull behind you. You will get where you are going because you are actually going TO something, not AWAY from something. See my post “Get a Second Planet”:

3) Make decisions through the new lens. See yourself and/or your business the way you want it to be when you get there, not where it is, and make decisions AS IF YOU WERE ALREADY THERE.

In the book Shift by Peter Arnell, he tells how he went from being 406 lbs to a maintenance weight of 150 lbs. As soon as he decided to lose the weight, he began to see himself from that moment on as a 150lb. man, and EVERY DECISION HE MADE was as a 150lb. man. He even went out that week and fired some of his clients who he felt were the clients of a 406lb. man.

Don’t “hope” to get there. Peter didn’t wait until he was 150lbs. to begin to make decisions like a 150lb. man. That would be “hoping” to get there, and running away from being fat. The minute he made the decision he was already 150lbs. on the inside.

Be there already inside, and just bring the rest of your external world into alignment with the way you already view the world from inside. Sound like woo-woo crap? It’s not – it’s hard core success strategy, and it’s how every highly successful business person becomes so. They see something they want to make happen, they believe in their core that it is doable, and then they set about making every decision as if it has already happened.

The above three steps are all about intentionality vs. hope. Intention is the key because:

You get what you intend, not what you hope for.

New Year’s Resolutions are almost always too full of “hope”, which is emotion-based and needs a special day to get itself motivated to do anything. Real decisions are usually full of intention and don’t need a special day or audience to be walked out into the open.

BUT – I will say that whatever decision you make, on whatever day you make it, you should indeed declare it to the world and ask everyone around you to support you, not in getting there, but in already being there (please don’t feed me donuts if I’ve declared I’m 150lbs., and don’t entice me with 2 weeks in Cabo the day after I start my new business.)

Don’t get there. Be there. Then bring the outside world into alignment with that clear intention. Hoping, wishing, dreaming, and believing don’t add up to doing.

Go ahead. Make a decision ANY day of the year (including New Year’s Day). But much more importantly, see yourself, your business, and the world around you through the new lens, and make every decision going forward as if you were already there.

Where do you want to be in 2012? Tell the world here, be there inside today, and then let’s go do it on the outside the next 364 days.