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2 Words That Will Change Everything About New Year’s Resolutions

I hereby resolve… yeah, there’s a better way.

First the bad news on New Year’s resolutions – Only 8% of people who make a New Year’s resolution keep that commitment. Worse yet, if you’re making a dieting resolution, you have a 5% chance of keeping the weight off, but an 83% or higher chance of gaining back more than you lost. Research shows that resolving to lose weight is actually an indicator you are going to GAIN weight!

Now the good news. You get what you intend, not what you hope for. Change can be real and lasting.

The Random Hope Strategy

Most New Year’s resolutions are built on the random hope strategy of life–if I think and feel something, who knows, I might get motivated enough to do something about it. A very few resolutions, 5-8% are built on something very different than random hope–intention. Intention is different than expectation. Intention assumes I’m going to have to work my ass off, but if I do, I’m very likely to get what I am chasing.

Conation

There are two words that describe why 92% of people don’t keep their resolutions and why the 8% do. First, if you really want to keep your resolution, you’ll learn and embrace the word “conation”.

Conation is the most important, least known word you’ll ever learn about success (we use it as a foundation for helping business owners succeed). Conation is

the will to succeed that shows up in single-minded pursuit of a goal,

or, “Get out of my way, I have somewhere I need to be.” Conative people actually don’t have to tell people to get out of their way. You can see the determination in their eyes, and you just step aside.

In the 1970s my Mom was a three pack a day smoker. A doctor told her she had pre-cancerous lesions on her larynx from smoking, so that day she quit and never smoked again. She didn’t need a New Year’s resolution or another week to get her last few smokes in. There was even a full case of Kools in her smoking drawer for another few years before she finally threw it away.

Mom’s actions were classic conation. As soon as she knew what she should do, she did it. No ceremony, no waiting period, no walking on coals, chanting at a vision board, or hypnosis. Conation is defined by this–as soon as we know what we should do, we start doing it. Realizing the need is directly followed by action.

Velleity

Can you see why New Year’s resolutions don’t work? We “resolve” in early December that we need to do something on New Year’s day, while binging on whatever we know we should stop; a sort of extended Mardi Gras that clearly demonstrates we don’t actually want to do what we say we want to do. This brings us to the second word–velleity (vah-lay-ity).

Velleity is the second most important word around being successful and is the direct cause of why 92% of resolutions fail. Velleity is,

the desire, with no intention of doing anything.

Wouldn’t it be nice if…? Someday I’m going to… I sure hope that… – It’s all velleity. We fool ourselves into thinking we actually want change because the emotional desire is so strong–“I really do want it!”. But it’s just emotional desire, with no intention of actually doing anything.

Just Priorities

I can see why Mom was able to be so conative. She once told me, “Chuck, there is no such thing as excuses, there aren’t even reasons, there are only priorities.” Conation is built on deciding that something (losing weight, stopping smoking, being a better husband, etc.) is more important than something else (food, nicotine sedation, being self-absorbed, etc.). It’s all about priorities.

For every well-intentioned resolution to lose weight, stop drinking, call Mom, get sober, be more helpful, control your temper, or finish installing the molding in the kitchen, there are unconscious commitments to keep things exactly the way they are right now. But velleity gives us the cover we need to think we actually want change. The emotional desire to see things differently (velleity) passes for real desire to change something, which results in immediate action (conation).

The Only New Year’s Resolution That Will Actually Change Something

Here it is:

I hereby resolve that going forward, I will never again wait for some future date, including New Year’s Day, to do something I know I should do. I will be conative and decide that anything worth changing, is worth changing as soon as I recognize it, and that any time I want to put off that change, I will remind myself of velleity–the emotional desire, with no intention of doing anything.

Or the short version:

I know I want to change something, because I’m already doing it. Everything else is just velleity/desire.

Remember, there are no such things as excuses or reasons, just priorities. If it’s important enough to change, I will do it now, not later.

Conate!

Be part of the 8% who succeed – resolve to be conative in 2016. It can change your life!

(Pssst – Don’t wait for New Year’s Day to resolve to be conative. Waiting is just velleity.)

Article as seen on Inc.com

Resolve to Never Make a New Year’s Resolution

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.