Finger Crossed, Your New Year’s Resolution Won’t Work
Here’s why, and what you can do to make it works.
“This year is going to be different,” said yourself as the dopamine rush into your brain.
Plot twist: it’s always going to be the same.
You set yourself some goals > Feel excited about them > Do them for three weeks > Unmotivated to keep doing them > Completely forget about them > Suddenly realized them in November > “Well, next year going to be different” > Repeat.
There are 2reasons why you always bail on yourself.
#1. You don’t focus on small things
“If I could lose 10kgs this year that would be awesome”, of course, it would be awesome, but going out to the gym and went on diet is painful.
The trick lies in making the journey as painless as possible.
Now imagine yourself driving a car, you don’t tell your brain to turn right or left, you let your brain take control of the steering wheel automatically.
You could even find 10 different reasons why your ex left you three years ago while driving into the nearest Mcdonald's. But somehow you still managed to get your Big Mac.
Our brain is complex, yet amazing at the same time. If you repeat something long enough, your brain will record it, and make the process automatic — In other words, it will be painless.
It’s called habit. That’s the key to making this new year’s resolution different.
If my new year resolves to acquire more clients, sending pitch emails would be painful, but that would only be at the beginning. Over time, my brain will get used to it, and make it automatic.
Habits will govern your mind to do a certain thing automatically. Every time I turned on my laptop, the first thing that I would open is my Gmail, that’s a habit — To be honest, I don’t even realize it until I wrote this article.
The same thing goes for you, the moment you open your Instagram app, you tap on your ex’s stories just to upgrade your pain to the maximum level — C’mon, stop lying to me, I know you do that.
So until something becomes a habit, there is no easy way to do it. You just have to push yourself. Here are some videos that might help you to build good habits.
#2. You overestimate what you can do in a day
“Most people overestimate what they can do in a day, and underestimate what they can do in a year” — Anonymous
This is one of my favorite quotes across the internet. We often think we can do many things within a day.
“Well, tomorrow is my day off, I’ll go to the gym, then…., then…., then….” Nope, you won’t do all of your to-do lists.
It’s not about being really productive in one day, but being consistent for the whole year. Some days are harder than usual, and that’s okay to take a break for a day or two.
In the end, even on winning the election, you don’t need to have 100% votes, but only if you win the majority votes.
Instead of aiming for perfection, aim for consistency. Start small, and improve over time.
Let’s make the most of 2023. By starting small and through consistency, this year it’s going to be different than the previous year.
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