01/01/2023
Save yourself the trouble and skip the New Year’s resolutions:
The new year is notoriously a time people want to make change and decide to “turn over a new leaf.” But really? How does that work out most years?
I think instead of buying into the sexy hype of New Year’s resolutions- it’s better to always be working on things incrementally- not in one fell swoop. It’s ok, even great, to have a vision about something you want to change or tweak or improve or do more or less of, but change is about practice. “Permanence,” as it were, comes from practice and its very close ally habit - essentially.
So resolutions - without attention to the process - set people up for failure. As Jeff Olsen says in The Slight Edge - if change were a question of intelligence we’d all be skinny and rich. But we aren’t.
A resolution for a new year is to not have them but rather to see the change we desire as a longer and more daily practice. He calls them “daily disciplines.” And, to that point, James Clear, in Atomic Habits similarly prizes the systems (i.e., daily habits,)that yield change over the “goal.” A word, incidentally, I do not love.
So this January - if you’re inclined to make a long list of resolutions - save yourself the “do the same thing, get the same results” routine and start thinking about small, little, seemingly insignificant practices and processes that might get you to a different place.
( just a note: this is also true for the negative and destructive ways we habitually speak to, about, and with ourselves. In other words, it isn’t just overt habits or physical behaviours that require our daily attention and that could use some transformation;)
Happy New Year - filled with positive and productive practices xo
