It’s 2009.
Where did 2008 go? Did you achieve all you wanted, rather all you thought you would? Did you achieve all your goals?
Did you achieve your goals?
Stop smoking?
Lose your weight?
Read the books you thought you will?
Spend more time with family?
Etc etc etc?
Well it’s now a new year. May be this year you will do all you think you should be doing. First things first though. Lets get rid of these resolutions. They don’t work. They didn’t in 2008. They wouldn’t in 2009. Why have them?
Resolutions are silly conversations. Some in your mind and others with someone else, may be.
They appear something like this.
“What’s your resolutions this year?”
“I am going to start exercising and lose this additional 5 kilos I have put on.”
“What’s yours?”
“I am going to quit smoking.”
Two weeks into January and they will become like this.
“I joined the gym. Paid the fee. But where is the time. Office life sucks. You can either support a family or lose weight. Market is down, I can’t even take a risk.”
And
“Bad idea to quit on one go. Doesn’t work. Lets do it one at a time. I’ll have to tone it down step by step. Lets start with five a day.”
New Year resolutions are a way of telling yourself there is something you want to achieve. It doesn’t happen though. Resolutions rarely become reality. They remain illusive everlasting tales.
They were, most of them, present at the end of 2007 and are so at the end of 2008. What’s changed?
I hate to rain on your New Year fantasies but lets be real here. How many times have your read a book or learnt something elsewhere and though or said to yourself that ‘I’ll make a change’. How many times, if you read these articles regularly, said to yourself ‘I think I need to do this differently.’ How many times have you done it?
If you haven’t done it yet, I am really curious to know, how will a New Year Resolution help? New Year Resolutions are for escapists. People who think they want to accomplish something but equally conveniently hide behind the mask of having ‘decided’ or ‘acted upon’ by the way of a resolution.
I don’t have anything against resolutions and goals. I think they are wonderful and must be thought about and written. However a ‘New Year resolution-attitude’ is most defeating.
Think about it Why do we set New Year resolutions? Why do we wait for New Year resolutions? If you want to lose weight, quit smoking, increase your income, spend more time with family, resolve a relationship etc… and If all this is generally good for you.. and if all this will make you happy, healthier, energized, richer… then why aren’t you doing it. Are you mad? Why isn’t it being done already? What do you need a New Year resolution for? Who are you fooling?
There is an opportunity to achieve what you have resolved, or even if you are on of those who haven’t yet bothered to do even this much. That opportunity is – BE real with yourself. Being real with yourself means asking yourself two questions –
1- “Why are you making this resolution?”
For example if you want to lose weight or quit smoking the reasons may be – to be healthier, look better, feel better…
2- “Why haven’t you achieved this already?”
What is the root cause. For example in resolving to lose weight the causes may be eating junk food, eating late at night, eating too much in one shot, eating all day, never exercising… These aren’t root causes though whether its losing weight, smoking, family time, relationships or income.
Knowing that this isn’t good and isn’t making you happy, why does this happen? May be self control. May be you are genially unhappy with something that if far more difficult to confront.
May be some kind of fear? May be some kind of (reverse) comparison? Reverse comparison is not wanting it because is makes you better than someone else or something and then brings in a different pressure altogether.
Are these the root causes. One of them well might be. However there is yet a deeper cause. All these causes and all these resolutions can be explained by one cliché statement – “Where there is a will, there is a way.”…
The statement is cliché – BUT – if you can understand the magnitude of this, you may well have improved your chances of achieving your goals by 99.99%.
The statement means this – You better first have a will, then and only then, achievement will follow.
Lets look at it backwards – You have a goal – You have had it for a while – you haven’t achieved it yet – you haven’t found a way to achieve it – you don’t have the will to achieve it.
Simple! – New Year resolution is not the solution. ‘Willing’ is!
What are you willing to do? What are you willing to change? What are you willing to sacrifice?
What are you willing to ‘pay’ as the price (everything has a price to pay)? What are you willing to work harder for? Are you willing to persist through failure? Are you willing to accept that you are the reason? Are you willing to allow yourself to achieve? WILL you do it?
Reality is that your willingness and only that creates your will.
The only resolution you ever need is to be more ‘Willing’. Whenever in life you can achieve that, rest is a matter of time, not a matter of ‘New Year Resolutions’..
To you willingness and to your will… A very Happy New Year…
Chetan