It’s just amazing how probably over 2 billion people every year set themselves (overly) optimistic resolutions that they are going to achieve once the clock hits midnight at the end of 31 December.
Now, be honest, how many times did you actually achieve those? You’re probably sitting there now and…. you can’t really remember, right? You are not alone. Well, maybe there was this time when you actually went to the gym for the whole of January, but that didn’t quite work in the long run.
It’s a fact that only 20% of people stick to their New Year’s resolutions for longer than six weeks and this number becomes much smaller for resolutions that require more time to achieve. The worst part about it is all this will turn to painful self-loathing after failure. Well, I know this all might sound pretty bad, and it’s not something you might want to hear with 2020 already being ‘a horrible year’. Still, my question is: how will you respond when the calendar says ‘1 January’ and you don’t feel any optimism or motivation to work on your goals?
We still have 3 weeks of this year ahead of us. But many people have already started to turn their attention to and build their hopes for 2021. We all would love to turn the page and start afresh. We also thrive — in theory, if not in practice— on New Year’s resolutions.
But our New Year’s resolutions shouldn’t wait for the new year. Now, I’m not going to pretend that the pandemic isn’t still raging and that the world looked quite different this year. So we shouldn’t judge ourselves negatively for not achieving the goals that we set earlier this year. But we also must face the fact that the calendar change to 2021 may not offer the boost that we need at this point. If we accept this reality, we can think through what possibilities do exist. We can begin to focus on what we can control.
In order to avoid the frustration in January and possible past experiences of the optimism dying after the hangover wears off a few days after New Year’s Eve, we each can take a few basic steps to ensure that the dynamic needed to achieve your resolutions does not catch us by surprise. You simply can’t afford to lose more time without acting on your goals.
So make the next three weeks work for you. We need to unlearn our past ideas of what New Year’s resolutions are about. It’s about a positive life-changing attitude we have to adopt. It requires a great deal of effort and energy to be set in motion. So, do not wait for 1 January, your 2021 starts now. Rethink your goals and start acting on them, and you might just find that you are halfway there once the clocks hit midnight.